Ambience: A Fleet Symphony
by Hieda no Akyuu
Summary: Set in the summer of 2029, an alternate world is beginning to recover from the fallout of a nuclear World War III. Society has collapsed, and governments around the world have been reduced to nothing more than local power holders vying for global power. But underneath the rubble of the war lie secrets of a forbidden technology that may bring the world out of its misery, or end it.
1. First Contact

**It seems that Kantai Collection is the new Touhou these days. Not that that's bad. But I took one look at the game, and even though I would very much so like to play it, that lottery system...oh God. And considering games like KanColle are VPN-restricted...  
**

**I initially wished to put this story in second person for the experience of writing a story as such, because the standard third-person omniscient narrator seems boring to write all the time, but lo and behold..."no second person" in the rules and guidelines. It seems this site is too scared of second person stories falling into the "trap" of interactive stories, but that is none of my business. All I know is that I wasn't going to make my own story interactive, but purely for the experience in writing in second person, but given my experience with the FF admins...**

**One last topic that I would like to mention is that the summary, now that I read it over a couple times, seems very...Fallout-esque, even though I wasn't thinking about Fallout when I first made the synopsis for this story. Oh well - full steam ahead regardless.**

**Hope you enjoy what I have to write.**

**-Akyuu no Joshu**

* * *

Houston, Texas.

Or, more accurately, what used to be Houston, Texas.

A young man, tall but rather boyish-looking under the cap that he wears backwards on his oily dark blue hair, climbs the last of a series of upturned asphalt and rock that once made up Interstate 59, one of the many highways leading into the city. In the young man's case, he had traveled south to reach the northern outskirts of Houston, just in time to avoid a tornado that he had seen brewing up further west on his way down to the former city. He sighs lightly, pulls out a radiation-proof canteen, twists the cap off, and takes a light sip of the clean water inside - water that isn't contaminated to all hell. That water he held in his hand could possibly be the only clean water source for about four hundred miles around, give or take maybe a couple dozen more.

A breathtakingly somber scene lays before the young man as he stands putting his canteen away in the large survival backpack that he carries. The city of Houston, Texas, lays in ruins. Its multitudes of once-proud, once-tall skyscrapers that once stood as symbols of economic and social order and as the epitome of American capitalism and democracy are now in the process of urban decay, only decades after they were abandoned. Most of the skyscrapers now lie scattered about on the earth's crust like fallen Jenga pieces, their debris and broken glass littering everywhere as natural vegetation takes them over as new homes. The few that still stand are in imminent danger of collapsing at any time, both due to deteriorating infrastructure and the weight of all the animals and other wildlife that have taken up residence in the aging hulks of scrap metal that those mysterious humans always seem to be fond of building yet seem to have stopped building or occupying anymore. A scene of true apocalyptic nature, as it strikes the boy as he begins his treacherous descent down into the slight crater that surrounds the city in a perfect circle.

Polchow, Damon. Six foot three, 177 pounds. Short, dark blue hair with a slight widow's peak that tends to get very oily very fast, even if he doesn't do any physical activity. Despite his boyish looks and rather awkward tallness, he is well built from years of enduring harsh conditions that he's lived in all his life in a world devastated by weapons of mass destruction. The weather-worn backwards, dirtied and smudgy white cap, tearing at the ends, sports a small emblem, a yin-yang with large white and black wings, that is very faded and hardly distinguishable now. Light, plain black T-shirt with plenty of small rips that are the proud wounds of the journey that the boy made to reach this desolated city with a current population of zero humans, but the boy does not seem to notice or care about the mending his shirt requires. The same applies to his ordinary Levi jeans, whose endurance and reliability are proving more than its weight in gold for him at this point. The gray Jansport backpack, also dotted with various smudges of various origin, remains faithful, refusing to show any rips at all just yet despite the harsh conditions it has seen thus far with the load that it carries.

Damon hops expertly from one jagged, upturned boulder to another.

He is armed with an MK-14 Rogue Chassis Rifle System, equipped with a CRS-468 telescopic reflex sight, forward handgrip, and detachable gunsling, that he wields with his left arm quite easily and almost effortlessly, despite its heavy load. A Predator load-bearing vest sports extra 7.62x51mm DMR NATO magazines for ease of access and reload, along with extra ammunition for his .45 GAP Glock 37, which sits securely in its holster around Damon's upper right thigh.

These weapons he had scavenged from wandering bandit parties he had ambushed or from abandoned military bases and camps that he came across during his trek down to Houston. The MK-14 Rogue Chassis he found at some small military outpost hidden neatly away in the mountains of the Appalachians, and the Glock from a police station in Little Rock. He had cycled through many weapons along the way, but these he found to do the job the best and had never parted with them since. The bigger the bullet, the better, until the size starts being a problem in regards to weight. The DMR round fit his fancy quite neatly, along with the GAP round of his Glock. The bullets would stop anyone - and anything - with one well-placed shot, and there were no exceptions to this.

It is Damon's belief that without this razor-sharp efficiency, someone like him would never be able to survive on their own in this world. Indeed, it is unheard of for a young man like Damon to wander about in the irradiated wasteland alone, with no apparent protective gear and armed to the teeth with military grade weaponry.

Another two hours pass as Damon enters the broken streets of the city of Houston. When the nuclear war - or, as everyone liked to call it, World War III, broke out, Houston was one of the first cities to get hit, surprisingly enough. As it turned out, it was meant to be a distraction target as Iran secretly targeted a coordinated volley of intercontinental ballistic missile strikes at Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, the Pentagon, and Seattle, when Iranian operatives installed a dirty bomb in South Central Houston and set it off. As Houston was evacuated, the missiles rolled in, and the age-old political and military school of thought known as mutually assured destruction got shoved down the black hole of forgotten history forever. In the ensuing exchanges of warheads, the shock of all the rockets hitting the earth triggered mass earthquakes around the globe, one of which hit Texas so hard that Houston, ironically, became the only city still largely intact once the aftershocks finally died down, despite the fact that it was the first city to be abandoned.

To Damon, the term "World War III" was despicable and ignorant. To him, the conflict that destroyed the world of the generations before him could hardly be qualified as a world war at all. It was a shitstorm of nuclear explosions and chemicals thrown around the world that lasted exactly for a month and only ended because the missile strikes killed everyone and anyone related to the operation of the rest of the nukes, and everyone else who still weren't dying of radiation or other infections agreed to stop bombing the absolute hell out of one another. How ironic - but it was deserved, in his opinion.

If people had become so stupid to the point of bombing each other with weapons they knew could very well cause the end of the world, then let them all die. They didn't deserve to live with that extent of stupidity anyway. The other three or four billion other innocent people they took with them may have been tragic, but in the end, no one cares, because they're just all a statistic now, was Damon's reasoning. Everybody else is too busy making sure that they are not going to die of radiation poisoning tomorrow. And regardless, there is nothing they can do about their world now except attempt to carry on their miserable lives. Thinking about the deaths of everyone else is just a burden everyone can live without.

The late afternoon sun boils the scorched earth, the radiation clouds in the atmosphere from the nuclear fallout of the war acting as greenhouse gases and reflecting heat back down onto the planet. At least those stupid idiots didn't launch enough nukes to glass the entire fucking planet like that one meteor did to the dinosaurs or whatever or cause nuclear winter or anything of the sort. Not that it mattered to Damon, who jogs down the overgrown and abandoned Hirsch Road to reach his destination, Pasadena District, at a brisk pace.

In fact, temperature didn't matter at all to Damon. It never did, among many other things that normal, un-irradiated humans would find irritating.

Damon's load-bearing vest clacks and clicks as the magazines bump against one another with Damon's quick gait. Because of his inhuman ability to run at a set pace seemingly without limit, Damon found that he had access to much more of the world than almost anyone else. The survivors of the war were confined to areas either unaffected by all the radiation or areas that were painstakingly cleaned by valiant hazmat crews who risked their lives to make suitable areas to live for everyone else.

Wow, such valiance, much heroism.

Too bad they're all dead, poor bastards.

Damon never understood why so many people set out to participate in Operation Revival. It was an international movement called on by the United Nations as their last global announcement for people to salvage what they could from the world and clean as much radiation as they could. Of the three billion survivors in the world, about another half a billion soon began succumbing to the fallout as they fought to clean up the radiation with what limited supplies they could. It was because of their efforts that South America, Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Siberia, and Alaska are now virtually rid of radiation.

Not to mention the Arctic and the Antarctic were basically untouched, because at least the nuke-happy idiots knew not to bomb a place where no one lived. Now, ironically enough, the two poles are the most inhabited regions in the world, as people decided to go live with the penguins and polar bears.

Obviously, bad things happen when you relocate entire populations of hungry refugees onto areas with virtually no means of producing food naturally.

There are no more penguins or polar bears or seals left in the world.

Eh, it could've been worse.

Damon passes underneath freeway 510 and notices a small pack of wild dogs patrolling around Clinton Drive. His experience with the natural wildlife never was good: all the radiation in the air, especially in North America, which had been one of the main targets of the nuclear holocaust, eventually rolled over the entire country, causing the survivors to dig in, Fallout-style, to avoid dying of radiation-induced cancer. Needless to say, the wildlife either escaped if they could or simply shriveled up and died. The very few who stayed and survived became irradiated to the point of immunity, like the dogs now sniffing at some old trash barrels overturned onto the street. It is as if the radiation had reverted them back to their ancestral dire wolf roots, and their bodies swelled several times their normal domestic house-dog sizes and their behaviors became much more aggressive. At some points, Damon considered the wildlife to be greater enemies than the rogue humans he'd met.

As he tries to sneak around behind a faded and ruined brick wall, he hears one of the dog barking hysterically and swears under his breath. Most likely those dogs had not smelled the scent of a human for so long that it was too easy for them to detect his presence, so he ducks low against the wall. His hands, clothed in black fingerless gloves, clench as he withdraws a knife handle from the right side of his load bearing vest, and at a press of a button, the knife blade swings down like a Swiss army knife, then spits out another sharp steel segment at an angle to form a makeshift karambit knife.

As soon as the first dog jumps over the wall, Damon times his attack perfectly to quickly stand and catch the dog in its chest and stop it dead in the air, severing the spinal discs to deny the animal the use of its legs. The other two dogs bound over the wall after their leader and quickly grind to a halt to face the mysterious human and yelp in surprise to see the sight of their leader bleeding and not moving, lying on the ground in front of the human. The scent of blood, however, throws the dogs into a frenzy, and they rush at the human, thirsting for more blood. Damon lifts the dying dog still impaled on his karambit and simply slaps away both of the charging dogs with one fluid, quick flick of his arm and hurls the dog on his knife onto the body of one of its followers, pinning it down. The last dog jumps for Damon's throat again, but Damon drops his rifle onto the ground, deftly snaps his karambit back into the handle, drops the handle, and grabs the irradiated dog by its jaws in the air. For a moment, the dog helplessly flails its legs in midair, a foot or two off the ground, and with another fluid motion, Damon rips the dog's body apart into two grisly, bloody, gory halves and tosses the two halves of the corpse aside. The pinned dog yelps and barks, struggling to escape the weight of the alpha dog that has by now expired, and Damon crushes his hiking boot down on each of the last dog's legs, breaking all of them and causing the dog to whine and scream in unintelligible pain. Damon then grabs the dead dog above it by the limp head and proceeds to club the dead dog against the live dog until both are bleeding pulps of lifeless organic tissue. He leaves the corpses and gathers his weapons again, grumbling that the damn dogs made him waste his time. The vultures and crows will find the bodies soon enough.

Thankfully, Pasadena District is not too far away now, where there should still stand a certain house that contains the prize that Damon seeks, given that the street signs are still legible after all these years.

The prize that Damon Polchow is looking for in an abandoned city that has many other items of value that have still not yet been claimed or stolen because of its shield of high radiation is a prize only he knows. No one else in the world knows about his objective, a fact that he personally feels very proud and powerful about possessing. He had heard rumors from friendly communities in Chicago that in the last decade before the nukes dropped, American scientists were suddenly deported from their country for allegedly working on ethically questionable research and development projects, but no one really knew what exactly they were working on. For whatever reason, they ended up in Japan, and no one heard from them ever since and became largely forgotten in the mushroom clouds that followed. But Damon is a risk taker, a gambler. He enjoys the thrills of hitting the jackpot when he strikes it hot, and even if his gambles do not pay off, he still enjoys the process of reaching the end of his efforts, because anything is better than living life in those boring-as-all-fuck CCPL outposts scattered throughout America, where survivors managed to dig in and do what they could to get rid of the contamination in their area. Damon himself traveled from the CCPL branch in Springfield, Illinois to come to Houston. When Damon heard that rumor and found that no one was really willing to dig deeper into the mystery, he made it his mission to find out what this "secret" project entailed. Luck had fallen right into his outstretched hand as soon afterwards, he had heard that a military airdrop had delivered an American scientist from Tokyo to the town so that he could recover what he could from his home. Tracking him down, Damon kidnapped the scientist and interrogated him mercilessly about the secret project, and eventually, he extracted all the information he needed to get started.

"The F.L.E.E.T. Project", or the Fleet Expansion and Enhancement Test, was initiated in 2001 by a team of American engineers, codenamed "Constitution", who were contracted by the U.S. Navy to build enhancements to the American navy as a direct response to the September 11 attacks. Quickly, the members of Constitution realized that their budget was much lower than they had initially anticipated, with most of the funding diverted to the American Air Force and Army instead, yet their standards and requirements remained the same. Unwilling to lose their contract but simultaneously unable to develop any real improvements to the American current ship technology with their limited funds, they brought in Ukrainian and Romanian scientists and doctors who specialized in stem cell research. Their solution was not to make improvements to current generation ships, but instead use the cheap, older-generations of ship technology - namely that of the second World War - and condense it to the size of a human. In other words, their goal was to create a fleet of humanoid robots - or something like that - that had the firepower of World War II-era ship technology that would be incredibly cheap but still be able to wield significant battle power and augment the larger, more modern ships of the American fleet nicely as escort boats or naval support squadrons. But the problem with making robots was that the funding necessarily for such robots would probably exhaust their tiny budget before their project could be completed, and most likely the Navy would find out what they were doing and cut their contract immediately. So instead, they brought over those European scientists so that they could instead artificially create humans genetically altered to harness the power of ships within them. They had planned to keep their work as classified as they could, because they knew the Navy brass would immediately drop their contract if they found out that their work involved the shaky moral grounds of artificial human creation, and reveal their finished products at the very end so that the Navy would have to pay them no matter what. Unfortunately for team Constitution, the Navy found out anyway, but instead of dropping their contract, the brass kicked them out of the country over to Japan, where they worked with Japanese doctors and engineers to finish the job. From what Damon learned from the American scientist he had interrogated, the team eventually decided to name their new human ships after the World War II navy of Imperial Japan, as a token of thanks for the heavy Japanese team's involvement and assistance with the F.L.E.E.T. project. The scientist told Damon that they had shipped one of their first products to Houston, Texas, to be transported to the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, but as fate would have it, the nukes fell a few days after its arrival in the city. Apparently, it had been moved to the underground basement of the home of one of the American scientists as an extra safety precaution that it did not fall into the wrong hands, and it has sat there to this day, inactive.

Damon made sure that the product - ship - whatever you call it - did not get affected by radiation. The scientist said so, at the threat of death. If that bastard turns out to be wrong, Damon thought, he's going to have one hell of a time dying.

And for some reason, apparently all of the ships that they had managed to build were girls. Perhaps the female body was easier to work with on a genetic level. Or maybe those damn scientists were all just horny old men who wanted to make the excuse of having ass and tits in their workplace.

Doesn't matter now, now that most of those scientists are dead from radiation poisoning. Japan wasn't spared from the nukes either, as Japan was a major ally of the United States.

Following the directions that he had beat out of the scientist and memorized, Damon arrives on West Rustic Drive of the Pasadena District. The green trees that once occupied these suburbs long ago are now all just bony skeletons of dead matter, and the houses themselves appear as if they, too, are dying from the lack of human occupation. As Damon scans the empty and windy streets for the correct address, everywhere he looks, he sees ugliness. The world had become a giant sphere of rotting, putrid ugliness as the result of the war. Ugly, ugly, ugly. For someone who was born into the world after the nukes fucked everything, this kind of environment should be normal. But Damon's mother had taught him what beauty was. She made him, her son, realize just how damn ugly this world truly was - both in its people, and in itself. Damon wanted to change that. Damon was determined to create for himself a world that wasn't so damn ugly all the time.

Hopefully this ship girl, when he finds her, isn't as ugly as the rest of this world is.

Damon locates the correct house - an ordinary two-story house that typifies the American dream, with a garage and backyard. The windows are all beat out, the front door is barely hanging in place, and a row of crows screech at Damon as he walks up to the front door and kicks it down, causing the birds to fly off in fright. He swings his Glock 37 around as a precaution against any house robber or other roamer like him who may be after the same prize as he, as unlikely as that may be.

Finding the stairs down to the basement, hidden behind a small door that reveals a set of small stairs underneath the stairs leading up to the second floor, Damon descends into the complete darkness of the basement. The electric lights obviously would not work, so trying to flip them on would be a waste of effort, so Damon proceeds without a light source. Instead, his sickly yellow eyes the color of yellow fever morph colors like a chameleon to black, hiding the bright hue within the shrouds of darkness, and Damon can see in dark perfectly. Rows of boxes full of various, miscellaneous items litter the floor, unorganized and strewn about, most likely the result of a lazy homeowner, but a tall, secure safebox the size of a big gym locker that looks like it could fit a whole person inside it stands upright against the wall furthest from Damon, draped with a clean white curtain lined with a fine layer of dust. Damon holsters his Glock and pulls off the curtain, staring at the lock that restricts access to the contents of the safebox. Sighing, Damon simply grabs the lock with his hand, and, putting his other hand firmly against the front of the safebox, he tugs sharply at the lock, breaking it cleanly off so that he can fiddle with the lock mechanism within and unlock the door without having to kick his way in. He pulls the door slowly open, preparing to catch anything that falls out in case the contents within are going to spill out without warning.

But nothing of the sort happens. Instead, the door quietly squeaks to a stop, revealing a girl within.

"...Fifth Fubuki class destroyer, Murakumo," Damon whispers.

Even with the dulled visual senses that his night vision inflicts on his eyesight, Damon can still easily make out the physical appearance of his prize.

Fifth Fubuki Class Destroyer, Murakumo, encased in the body of a teenage girl who didn't look any older than fifteen or sixteen. Five foot seven or eight, about. A long, white one-piece sailor uniform with blue outlines and a red necktie, with the ends of the uniform reaching just past down her pelvis to her upper thighs. A dark gray undershirt that matches the same size as her sailor uniform. Long, sleek white hair that gives off a hint of pale or teal blue. Dark black pantyhose covering the slender legs and black-white loafers. Two metal blades that somehow hang in the air, suspended just behind her head, above the ears that add five or six more inches to her height. Her eyes are closed, and she is not breathing.

Following the instructions he had obtained, Damon reaches into the safebox and simultaneously presses the two buttons on her strange metal headgear, one on each side. Immediately, Murakumo's eyes snap open, revealing pure white scleras with no pupils. Her jaw begins to move, and a monotone, robotic voice begins to emit from her throat.

_"Operating system initializing..._

_Retrieving system files..._

_Activating main power core..._

_Assessing main body condition..._

_Assessing equipment condition..._

_All conditions met and satisfactory. Fifth Fubuki Class Destroyer, Murakumo. Service number 39._

_System lock detected. Please speak your name, your reference number, and password to proceed."_

"Ken Simpson, reference number 17,468. Password, _ENIAC._"

A moment of silence passes as Murakumo seemingly does nothing. For that second, Damon is considering what he is going to do to the scientist when he returns to Springfield, but Murakumo's robotic monotone once again pipes up.

_"...system lock lifted. Murakumo, now active."_

Then, the darkness of the basement is somewhat dimly lit by a low, light green backlight that illuminates the upper cups of Murakumo's headgear. Her eyes, which lacked pupils, then develop said pupils, an orangish-red that reminds Damon of the inner fleshy juices of a tomato. Murakumo blinks a few times and emerges from the safebox, as the metal fastenings that held her in place within the safebox disengage and allow her to move. She stands before Damon and scowls at him.

"...what's going on here? You're not Admiral Sherman. Where is he? Where am I? Who are you?"

The sound of a sweet female voice falls upon Damon's ears, something he has not been able to enjoy in a very long time.

"The chain of command has been changed due to an unexpected development in circumstances. Starting today, you will henceforth be taking orders from me."

Murakumo narrows her eyes.

"Ha, ha, ha," she says, unamused. "I know what kind of person you are. You're one of those sick fucks who like to dream about how they tie up little girls in the dark and do disgusting things to them? Is that what this is? Do you realize who I am?"

Damon's eye twitches. What the hell did those fucking scientists do to build these girls?

"Fifth Fubuki class special-type destroyer, Murakumo. Modeled directly off the Japanese special-type destroyer of the same name from 1928 to 1942. One of the first finished ships of Project F.L.E.E.T.," Damon says in a low voice, keeping his patience intact.

"And who are you, then, exactly?"

"Damon Polchow. Irradiated survivor of the recent global shitstorm that is popularly known as World War III. Now your new commanding officer. Am I clear?"

Murakumo gives him an even more bizarre look.

"Damon...Polchow...? Survivor...World War III...what on Earth on you talking about?"

Damon takes a step forward, towards Murakumo. "Listen, a'ight? When you got transferred here to Houston, Ira - "

"Eeeeeh?!" Murakumo looks stunned. "I'm still here in Houston? What the hell am I doing in Houston? We're not at Charleston?"

"No, we're not, and let me explain. To make a long story short, right when you came here to Houston, World War III broke out when America and Iran started flinging nukes at each other, and that caused every nation with nukes to start bombing everyone else. It's been a long time since then. You hadn't been activated all this time - I'm the first person to reach you."

Murakumo looks visibly shaken. "Th - Then...wait, what...what year is it...?"

"2029."

"Wh-Whaaaaa...?! That far ahead...?! Wait, then - then when did this...this World War III start? I've only ever heard of the first two!"

"The bombs fell back in 2010. Most of the development team that built you is dead."

Murakumo is silent, too shocked to speak at first.

"...what about...what about the admiral...who was supposed to..." she almost whispers in a meek voice.

"Don't know what happened to him. I wasn't even born back then, so hell if I know."

"But you - you somehow knew about me! How did you know? Why have you come for me? I think - I think you're just trying to bullshit me - "

But Damon's patience snaps. Swiftly pulling out the knife handle from his vest, he raises the knife handle high above Murakumo's head, and a sharp _shing!_ rips from the bottom of the handle, revealing a nano-thin blade shaped like a harpoon point, and plunges the knife right into Murakumo's cranium and piercing her brain.

"O-Ow?!" Murakumo yelps with the pain and grabs at Damon's right arm, but suddenly she freezes, finding herself devoid of all control over her limbs and body. Only her eyes and jaw are able to move so she can still talk. A thin trail of blood drips down her face as a small tile screen that flips up from the top of the knife handle projects a percentage, steadily rising from 0 to 100, which Murakumo can clearly see from her perspective through the transparent screen.

"Wh-what're you doing?! Stop, stop!" Murakumo shrieks, not knowing what is happening to her and extremely frightened over her inability to control her own body. "What're you going to do to me?! What do you want from me!?"

"You're annoying, and I don't have time to deal with your constant questions," Damon mutters calmly. "I already told you multiple times. You're taking orders from _me_ now."

"B-But you haven't shown any credentials! For all I know, you could've just murdered everyone and just been feeding me lies all this time! Release me, now! ! !"

But Damon coldly watches the pixel numbers that glow in the dark hit 70, then 80, then 90, despite Murakumo's begging and screaming.

"P-Please! D-Don't shut me down, I'm begging you! A-A-Anything but that! N-No! No! ! ! NOOOOOO! ! ! ! ! !"

Her bloodcurdling shriek is cut short as soon as the pixels form the number 100, and Murakumo's arms drop limply down at her sides. Damon continues to hold the knife in place until the glowing numbers fade away and the tile screen folds itself back up into the handle. Damon removes the knife deftly and quickly, with only a few small streaks of blood remaining on the nanoblade. As Damon retracts the blade and puts the knife handle away, Murakumo's body trembles a bit, and she stands up straight again, putting her hand on her head where the knife had struck her, groaning.

"Owww...you know, even if I'm a ship girl, something like that still hurts..." Murakumo shakes her head to clear the fuzzy consciousness of hers.

"So then, are you going to follow my orders or not?" Damon asks quietly.

Murakumo glares up at him. "...I have no choice. You somehow overrode my command protocol and altered my commanding officer identification to be yourself..."

She looks away, scowling again.

"...Admiral."

Damon sports a small grin, but he hides it quickly before Murakumo sees it. He takes off his backpack and sets it on one of the boxes nearby, and he unzips one pocket to take out a small hand towel that he uses to wipe the blood off Murakumo's wound.

"Will this wound heal by itself?" Damon asks.

"...it will, given enough rest," Murakumo replies. "But why are you being nice to me now? Are you messed up in the head or something? You just stabbed a girl in the head, you know?"

"I hacked a ship girl to begin following my orders. Now that you are mine, it's also my responsibility to make sure that you're fully operational at any time that I need you," Damon clarifies, putting the hand towel back away in his backpack and putting it back on. "Now follow me. I'll fill you in on what's happened for the past two decades as we travel."

"If such is your command..." Murakumo sighs. "Where are we headed to?"

"Charleston. The Naval Weapons Station and Docks. I need you to get armed."


	2. The World We Live In

"Are you equipped with anything that you can defend yourself with at the moment?" Damon asks his newly acquired ship girl, Special-Type Fifth Destroyer Murakumo.

"It seems I only have my main mast," she replies as they emerge from the basement back to the light of the hazy afternoon sun in the abandoned house. "...is this what the world looks like now?"

They gaze out to the world beyond the hanging front door, a scene that Damon is all too used to seeing day after day.

"Been this way all my life. What, were you expecting something different?"

"The people who built me put in memory receptors that held sights and other sensory cues of what the world looked like in their day," Murakumo says. "It was because they wanted us to operate like normal humans of society when we were off duty. That's why...I'm not used to the world looking the way it does now."

Damon glances at Murakumo. "Us? Who's us?"

"Us, as in the fleet," the white-haired girl scowls. "I thought you somehow magically knew everything about us? What's this, all of a sudden?"

"I only knew of you. The guy I beat the hell out of to get the info refused to tell me about the rest, however many they built. Tell me, are you able to locate the others?"

Murakumo scratches her head. "Normally I have a roster with all information pertaining to active duty fleet girls like myself, but currently I am the only one listed. Perhaps what you say is indeed true...everyone should have been activated by now around the same time...I should not have been the first one..."

"Can you locate the others?" Damon repeats.

"Sheesh, calm down, you. At the moment, I only have information on four other ship girls that I can extract. Oh God, this database is old...no activity for at least a decade and a half...I guess you're not lying after all."

"What are their names?" Damon asks, ignoring Murakumo's last comment.

"Shimakaze, I-19, Kaga, and Mutsu," Murakumo reports. "That's all I know, their names. Their current locations and statuses are unknown, so don't even ask."

Damon ponders quietly. "...I'd say if we book it to Charleston, we'll probably find another there," the young man concludes.

"What makes you say that?"

"Dr. Simpson and his team sent you here as a layover leg in your trip to Charleston, which was your intended destination, at a dockyard. My guess is that they were probably planning on gearing you there. The chances of other ship girls like you also being transported there is pretty high, I'd say."

"Okay, that's great and all, but...look, you haven't explained yourself one bit here," Murakumo angrily says. "First of all, why did you activate me? Second of all, why do you want to arm me at Charleston? Third of all, why do you want to know about us ship girls?" She counts off her questions with her fingers for added emphasis.

"First - to use you. Second - because I have some shit I need blown up. Third - to control you. All of you," Damon growls back, peering out the window as he hears the rumble of a truck engine outside. "...now what the absolute fuck are rogues doing in Houston?"

"Hey, don't change the subject! You're not telling me mu - " Murakumo approaches Damon, but he whips out his hand and presses it against Murakumo's mouth to silence her, putting a finger to his lips and pointing outside. The two of them look outside the house again.

A small convoy consisting of an old Ford F-130 pickup truck and a bigger utility truck roll into the street, escorted by a few men in radiation hazmat suits walking beside the vehicles. Damon and Murakumo can hear their muffled banter as they slowly pass.

"...these fucks," Damon bitterly mutters and turns to Murakumo. "You know how to use a gun?"

"A gun? You mean my cannons that I don't have? Isn't that why - "

"Look, I ain't got time for your smartassery." Damon quickly puts down his backpack, unzips the main pocket, and pulls out an unloaded Heckler & Koch MP5-K submachine gun to hand to Murakumo. "Do you know how to use something like this?"

Murakumo takes it awkwardly. "Uhhh...no? What the hell am I supposed to do with this?"

"Shoot things, obviously. If you can shoot a 12.7cm cannon, you can shoot a 9mm gun. You're a goddamn ship girl, you can handle it." Damon tosses a thirty-round magazine at her, and she reflexively catches it.

"Y-You're telling me to shoot those people?" Murakumo stammers.

Damon gives her the stinkeye. "...are you serious? You were constructed specifically to destroy other ships and, in essence, kill people. Why are you hesitating? Are you disobeying the orders of your admiral?"

"N-No, it's not that, I-I mean, why are - why do you want to attack those people? Aren't they survivors of that...that World War III or whatever? What've they done?"

"They're just cocksuckers who want to loot this place and take people they're not familiar with hostage for ransom," Damon hisses. "Basically, subhuman, opportunistic fucks who intentionally try to profit off catastrophes and other people's suffering. Outside of the CCPL posts and any area with major survivor populations, you have guys like that runnin' around. People who, before the war, always hoarded up guns 'n shit claimin' the apocalypse was near, when in reality they're just looking for an excuse to run their own cartels outside government influence. Now that there basically is no more organized national governments, these people can do literally whatever the fuck they want. And I'm sick of it." He pops out the magazine in his MK-14 Rogue Chassis to check the bullet count and shoves it back into the mag receiver. "So I'm gonna kill all of them."

Damon aims the barrel of his bullpup marksman rifle out of one of the glassless window at the convoy, tracking his targets and toggling the red dot of his CRS-468 sight between the default zoom and the 4x zoom, analyzing his soon-to-be victims. "Murakumo, head to the back of the house and get ready to exit when I say so," Damon orders, looking over at his ship girl. "...what the hell, you haven't even loaded your gun?"

Murakumo is still awkwardly holding the MP5-K and her ammo. "I-I told you, this was never coded into my armaments program! I'm only trained to fire naval guns, like I'm supposed to!"

Annoyed, Damon sighs and takes the gun and magazine out of Murakumo's hands. "Watch and memorize. I won't show you this again until after I kill these guys," Damon says, and he performs the reload action on the submachine gun, inserting the magazine into the receiver and yanking the cocking handle to load the first bullet. He puts the gun back in Murakumo's hands.

"Point at whatever is about to shoot you and pull the trigger," Damon instructs. "One shot per pull. Don't put it on full-auto, it's a waste of ammo unless you absolutely need something dead. And whatever you do, do _not_ point it at me. Understood?"

"Er..."

"Good, now go."

Murakumo opens her mouth to protest, but then decides against it and unwillingly retreats further into the house, towards the backyard. Damon deploys a bipod built into his gun underneath the barrel and locks it securely on the windowsill. Even though the men near the convoy are speaking in muffled voices, Damon, with his mutated hearing, can still clearly hear their words.

_"Dude, do you know how much shit we can get off this block of the city alone? Ay yo, stop the car, stop the damn cars! We're lootin' this bitch!"_

_"Awww, c'mon, man, if we go deeper into the city, we'll find even better shit! What're these fuckin' suburbs gonna have that downtown Houston ain't gonna have?"_

_"That's exactly what we're here to find out, Connor! Loot the houses, then burn 'em all! Only we get to loot these fuckers!"  
_

Damon pulls the trigger of his weapon. The loud boom of a DMR round is preceded only by a sudden splatter of blood over the Ford pickup truck as one of the men in the hazmat suits collapses like a rag doll, the helmet pierced and its bloody and gory contents oozing out of the suit. As the bandits shout out in surprise, trying to figure out what happened, Damon quickly fires four more rounds, taking down three more of the hazmat suits before their comrades locate his position. Unlocking his gun's bipod, Damon throws himself against the floor as bullets whizz over his head, punching through the decayed wood and brick of the house like paper.

"A-Admiral?!" Damon can hear Murakumo scream over the suppressing fire, as he quickly army-crawls his way to the backyard to safety. Murakumo, having heard the gunfire, has taken cover behind the tree in the backyard and anxiously watches as Damon manages to roll his way to her.

"Four down, I think eight more," Damon reports. "Stick with me, and don't so much as move two feet away. You're immune to bullets, aren't you?"

Murakumo looks offended. "I'm a damn ship! What're these things gonna do to me!?"

"Then why did you run out like that behind here? Scared of bullets that shouldn't even do anything to you?"

Murakumo's face flushes. "Sh-Shut up, y - "

An explosion cuts Murakumo's words off, as splinters of wood and debris spill out of the door to the backyard.

"That's an M-67 Frag," Damon notes. "These fucks must've looted a military base somewhere. C'mon, Murakumo, follow me."

"But where?" Murakumo yells, as gunfire starts ripping the interior of the house up. "We're stuck here! There's nothing but fences around us!"

Damon simply throws his marksman rifle on his back with his strap, lifts Murakumo up in his arms, and throws her over the fence. Murakumo's scream trails over and is cut short again by a thump against the grass into the next house's backyard. Damon pulls out his knife, flips open the karambit blade, and sinks it into the fence and lifts himself over the fence and rolls to his feet, finding Murakumo rubbing her rear painfully.

"O-Ow...hey, you son of a bitch, you could've at least given me some kind of warning...?" she hisses, but Damon ignores her complaint, puts his hands underneath her armpits, and lifts her up to her feet.

"They're gonna think we're still in that house," Damon says. "We'll flank them from where they came from and see what kinda supplies they're bringin' along. With equipment like that, they're bound to have something good..."

Damon beckons to his ship girl to follow, and they slip through the backyard door left ajar in this new house and exit through the front door to a new street on the other side.

"Just so you know, my GPS isn't working for some reason," Murakumo says. "I could've found us a good route - "

"Don't bother, I already studied maps of Houston before comin' here," Damon interrupts, hurrying to down the street along the broken sidewalk. "I know exactly what to do..."

The two of them slip down a small alley hidden by dead brush about a block down from the house they exited and emerge back onto the street where the bandits had come. Before running out onto the road again, Damon peers around the decayed brick walls.

"They're still there. Probably making sure the house we were in's completely clear," Damon analyzes. "They'll also be delayed by their looting of the place, too."

"How do you know?"

Damon looks back at Murakumo. "If I were a looter, it's what I'd do. Run to that downed tree across the street; that way I can get a good line of sight on these fucks."

Murakumo scowls again at Damon. "By myself!?"

"Together, you idiot. Keep your head down and move. Go!"

They try to keep a low profile as they dash to the large overturned tree lying across the lawn of a house that stands about seventy meters from the convoy, and Damon knee-slides behind the big tree trunk and peers over the top to see if they have been spotted.

"We're good," he whispers. "I'm going to wait for those guys to come out of the house, and I'll light them up all at once. If you don't want to shoot them, then I won't force you, since it seems like persuading you to do things is a royal pain in the ass. But I'll say this right now: there'll come a time when you'll have to kill someone. It's just the nature of this world that we live in now."

Murakumo looks uncertainly down at the MP5-K submachine gun in her hands. "...well, I mean...you're my Admiral now. If you tell me to kill a human, I...I guess I'll do it...but..."

"Either you do it, or you don't." Damon mumbles, watching the bandits in the hazmat suits exit the house through his CRS-468 reflex sight. "This gun's loud, so better cover your ears."

Damon opens fire once more, causing Murakumo to yelp in surprise and cover her ears. His first shot is timed to catch two men at once, and they both are knocked down amidst small splashes of blood. By the time the rest of the escorting men on foot realize where the shots are coming from, they are all lying on the ground either dead or groaning with their debilitating wounds. Damon puts a few more rounds into the wheels into the trucks, which pop easily from years of nonreplacement and force the trucks to grind to a halt. The Rogue Chassis clicks empty, locking the empty charging handle back, and Damon inserts a fresh magazine of another twenty rounds from his Predator vest and slaps the charging handle forward to lock the first round.

"Are they dead...?" Murakumo asks, cautiously peeking over the tree trunk that they are using for cover.

"There's still more inside the trucks," Damon mutters. "I could shoot straight through those windows, but I prefer saving ammo whenever I can. Besides, they're stuck there, since I shot out their tires. The pressure's on them to make a move - all I gotta do is sit here and wait for them to do something."

A tense minute passes before one of the truck doors swings open to spill something out onto the dusty road. An M-18 smoke grenade detonates and begins hissing, spewing out lazy clouds of green smoke that soon obscures the trucks from Damon's view.

"Wh-What's that?" Murakumo asks urgently. "What's with all that green smoke?"

"They popped a smoke grenade. I bet what they're trying to do is cover their escape on foot with some smoke and hope I don't notice. Too bad I have thermal imaging..."

Toggling his reflex sight, Damon sweeps the road through a small screen of thermal imaging and sees about another six or seven men pile out of the trucks armed with various assault rifles like AK-47's and M16-A2's. He strikes them down with impunity, oftentimes shooting them as they step out of the truck, and a minute later, the smoke dissipates to reveal the dead bodies of the men Damon shot.

"...hostiles eliminated," Damon says with a calm and cold voice that sends chills down Murakumo's spine as he vaults over the tree trunk and approaches the convoy to inspect the loot. Murakumo hesitantly follows and watches as Damon checks the bodies for anything useful.

"...hey, Murakumo," Damon calls. "You might wanna take an AK. It's a pretty damn good survival gun."

"I already have a gun, though."

"That's an SMG. It's only really good for close quarters. You'll be screwed if you get caught in a midrange gunfight, so catch." Damon tosses an AK-47 with a full magazine to Murakumo. "I'll show you how to use it in a second, just gimme a sec." The survivor inspects the ruined hazmat suits that the men were wearing. "These were pretty old models...old, but got the job done," he notes. "Yeah, they must've hit the jackpot in whatever military base they looted...seeing how hazmat suits are community property and considered contraband if they're not registered..."

After checking all the bodies for valuable loot, Damon inspects the tire damage on the utility truck that he inflicted with his shots. The back right wheel is clearly popped and unable to run without a replacement, so he lifts himself into the truck bed to sift through its contents to see if he can find a spare tire. Finding the tire compartment built into the floor of the truck bed, he pushes the various boxes and crates away off to the sides and opens the compartment and finds, to his surprise, a workable truck tire in relatively good condition. He pulls it out and throws it out onto the road and hops out after it.

"What are you doing now?" Murakumo asks, watching him take off his backpack and pull out a blue toolbox.

"We're gonna take this truck," Damon says. "I shot out the tire here, so I'm going to replace it. In the meantime, get into the truck bed here and list everything you see in there while I fix this."

As Damon places some dead bodies to keep the truck from potentially rolling away and installs the jack, Murakumo climbs into the back of the covered utility truck. She cautiously opens the crates and boxes one by one, carefully memorizing whatever she sees. After about ten or so minutes, she hops back out to the sounds of nuts and bolts being unscrewed.

"What'd you find?"

"A box of canned food and boxed survival water with iodine tablets, a box of medical supplies like bandages, syringes, blood bags, painkillers, and whatnot, a small box of M-67 Fragmentation Grenades, a crate of STANAG-issue firearms and accessories, boxes of 5.56 and 7.62 caliber ammunition, and a crate of pistols and ammunition."

The mention of 7.62 ammo causes Damon's ears to twitch as he removes the shot tire. "7.62 ammo? I'll be damned - that ammo type is rare as fuck."

Murakumo watches as Damon installs the new truck tire. "Should I check the other truck too?"

"Nah...I'll do that, I'm almost done with this." Damon screws the nuts back in and removes the jack, glancing at the punctured tire as he does so. "Don't think I can repair that...we'll just have to dump it here." He puts away his tools back in the toolbox and climbs back into the truck bed to inspect the 7.62 ammunition. Finding the box, he opens it and smiles as the fresh DMR magazines peer out of the box at him. "So I guess this's what it feels like to have Christmas," he grins as he fills his load-bearing vest with whatever DMR mags that are missing and closes the box lid to exit the truck.

"I'll inspect everything in the truck in further detail later; we need to get outta here as soon as we can. I'll take whatever's valuable from the bodies, so in the meantime, get in the truck and wait for me," Damon orders, and Murakumo, still holding her MP5-K and AK-47, goes to sit in the front passenger seat next to the driver's. Damon takes a few minutes gathering ammunition and equipment from the dead bandits and tosses them into the bed of the utility truck before lifting off the heavy canvas that covers the bed of the Ford pickup. What he sees causes him to whistle in excitement.

Three rusty and dusty weapon cases all stamped with faded spray-ink letters that spell "SHIP URGENTLY" sit in the bed of the Ford pickup, along with big red jerry cans full of gasoline and other vehicle supplies. Dragging the three big weapons cases towards him, Damon lifts their covers and marvels at their contents as thin white layers of cold smoke billow out into the humid, hazy atmosphere. The first supply case carries two Atchisson Assault 12 shotguns, complete with their own gun cleaning kits and sixteen 20-round drum magazines. The second case contains a GmbH-AMP Precision DSR-50 bullpup sniper rifle with a cleaning kit and twenty fifty-caliber magazines of five bullets each stacked neatly in a row. The third case boasts an A.A.I. LSAT light machine gun with four belts of 200-round caseless 5.56 ammo, again with its cleaning kit. With the exception of the AA-12s, the weapon cases also displayed a small set of mountable accessories along the underside of the cover.

"Murakumo!" Damon calls. "Can you come here for a sec? I'll need your help real quick." Murakumo hops out of the truck to see what her Admiral requires, and Damon shuts the covers to the weapons boxes and lifts one up. "Take this and put it in the bed of the truck. Can you do it?"

Murakumo laughs. "I'm a ship girl - there's almost nothing human-made that I can't carry."

"Then good." Damon plops the heavy box containing the LSAT machine gun into Murakumo's arms, but she yelps again as the sudden weight transfer takes her by surprise. "...you okay there?"

"Th-This is nothing! You didn't give me a warning!" Murakumo's face reddens terrifically as she quickly walks away. Damon stacks the AA-12 case on top of the DSR case and carries them to the utility truck to stack them next to the LSAT case. "What did they have, anyway, for you to want them?"

"They're high-tech military weapons. We probably won't be able to find those in their pristine conditions anywhere else, most likely," Damon notes. "I can use them to trade for stuff if I need to - otherwise, they're fantastic combat weapons. These bandits really must've hit the motherload somewhere..."

They load the rest of the vehicle supplies onto the utility truck, and as Murakumo hops out of the truck bed after loading the last few items, Damon searches the front of the Ford pickup. As he opens the driver's seat door, he is greeted by a small human cry that takes him by surprise and causes his hand to instinctively go to his sidearm. Murakumo, hearing the cry, approaches the truck.

"Admiral, what...what was that sound?" she asks, watching Damon walk to the shotgun seat of the pickup and open it. Looking in for herself, she and Damon find a baby car seat with a young toddler strapped securely inside.

"...is...is this a human baby...?" Murakumo asks with a small whisper, and Damon nods.

"One of these guys...they must've had a kid. Either that, or they picked him up somewhere," he says in a low voice of his own. "But..."

"...but what, Admiral?" Murakumo looks at Damon and sees a complicated look on his face. He does not say anything for a moment, still looking down at the crying baby.

"How...how didn't we notice him until now?"

"...'cause I checked the back of the pickup first. Plus, when I opened the door...it let probably let the radiation in."

"Radiation...?"

"Basically, the reason why all those bandit dudes were wearing those suits is because this place has lethal amounts of shit in the air that'll slowly poison humans and other living things to death if you're exposed for too long. We call it radiation, and it's caused by the bombs that got dropped during World War III...since that's what people like to call it. Houston's no exception, even if it was a special case. The inside of this truck was probably sanitized somehow, since you can't put a baby like this in a hazmat suit. Dunno how, but..."

"But you're not wearing a suit yourself, so how are you still okay?"

"Long story, but basically I'm immune. Or, rather, irradiated to the point where I don't get hurt by it anymore..." Damon draws back and pushes Murakumo gently backwards. He draws his Glock 37 deliberately and aims it inside the car. Murakumo, realizing what he is about to do, screams out,

"W-Wait, what are you - no, stop it, STOP I - "

_**PTAAAAAA!**_

The echo of the Glock shot rebounds about the empty suburb block as the crying of a human baby is forever silenced. Only the light clinking of a .45 GAP casing bouncing off the broken street follows the cruel, piercing gunshot. Murakumo, watching the interior of the pickup splatter with light streaks of red, gapes with horror as Damon holsters his gun.

"Y-You - " Murakumo stammers, her emotions getting the best of her. "_You bitch! Why'd you do that?! Why did you kill him?! Why did you kill the baby?! He didn't do anything to you! What the fucking hell was that for?! W-Was that really necessary!? We could've - we could've - ! ! !"_

Damon glares at Murakumo. "We could've what? Tell me what we could've done for it."

_"W-We could've at least taken it with us!"_

"Take him with us? And have him die within a few days anyway because of all the exposure to the radiation?"

"Well, you could've taken us to somewhere that doesn't have this stupid radiation! The whole world can't be covered by it, can it?!"

"No, but the closest place that's safe from radiation is the next state over. He'd've died by then either way."

_"BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO FUCKING SHOOT HIM!"_

By this point, Murakumo's eyes are moist and threatening to spill tears, and the ship girl, shaking with anger, grabs Damon by the collar of his ripped black t-shirt and starts shaking him.

_"YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO KILL HIM RIGHT HERE! AT LEAST GIVE HIM A CHANCE TO LIVE! DID HE POINT A GUN AT YOU? DID HE TRY TO KILL YOU? NO! NO, NO, NO! YOU FUCKING HEARTLESS BAS - "_

_**SMACK!**_

Damon grabs Murakumo's own collar and pushes her away from him at an arm's length and slaps her hard against her left cheek. The sudden slap causes Murakumo to let go of Damon and stare at him in shock, holding her slapped cheek.

"Let's get one thing straight," Damon hisses. "I've lived my life as selfishly as I could to survive, because living selfishly is the best way to survive in a world like this. If that means procuring a ship girl like you, then so be it. If it means killing a kid to survive, then so be it. If it means living like a cruel and heartless bastard for the rest of my life, then so be it. And I am not going to let you or anyone else tell me otherwise. Am I clear?"

They glare at one another, Damon's hand still on his Glock 37. Blood begins dripping out of the car seat onto the ground below the Ford. Finally, Murakumo tears her eyes away and climbs into the truck and slams the door, burying her head into her legs. Damon can hear her sniff loudly just before she shuts the door. Damon glances back inside the car at the dead baby. He takes the baby blanket on the car floor below and covers the corpse before heading back to the utility truck.

"You're sure you don't know any other location that might have more ship girls like you?" Damon asks as he starts up the truck and pedals it out of the ambush scene and into the heart of the ruined city of Houston.

Murakumo does not respond, still burying her head in her thighs.

"Murakumo?"

Still no answer.

"Murakumo, answer me."

"Don't talk to me, you murderer."

"This is a fucking order, now answer me and you won't hear me talk to you again for another six hours."

"...no, I don't know, now stop asking me."

Damon pulls onto Richey Street, and the rumbling of the truck engine hums down the irradiated suburbs. "We're going to stop by William P. Hobby Airport to make sure I'm not accidentally leaving behind any more ship girls," he alerts Murakumo, who, as he expects, does not say anything back to him.

This will be quite the long drive, Damon thinks to himself as he watches the hazy and ugly scenery roll by past the truck.


	3. A Sense of Purpose

After spending the rest of the day meticulously searching through the receiving wards of the William P. Hobby airport for any of the same safeboxes that contained Murakumo, Damon drives his newly acquired utility truck full of supplies with Murakumo sitting shotgun along highway 10 over Old River Lake. Murakumo is gazing out the window, watching the black water below and the hazy darkness surrounding the bridge that somehow survived the earthquakes.

"Are you hungry at all? You need anything?" Damon asks, breaking the silence between them.

"..."

"Murakumo, answer me."

"No, I do - "

Her stomach growls quietly. Murakumo, clenching her teeth, tries to throw an embarrassed punch at Damon, but he swiftly catches her wrist without looking.

"Don't do that," Damon says in a low voice, "especially not when I'm driving."

He lets go of her hand, and Murakumo retreats it quickly away from him, as if disgusted that she got touched by someone like Damon.

"Are ship girls capable of consuming human food for sustenance, or do you need something specific?" Damon continues.

"...if we don't use our ship weapons, we're fine just eating human food...but if you want us to fight like we were designed to, we'll need more..."

"Like what?"

"...don't you know this already? Why're you asking me?"

"I've mentioned this before already - I don't know anything about you ship girls, only that you exist."

Murakumo sighs irritably. "Our ship needs are divided into four categories: fuel, ammo, steel, and bauxite. Because of our humanoid design, all of these things aren't necessary to our existence, but it helps our performance significantly."

Damon taps the steering wheel thoughtfully. "How much is 'significantly'?"

"Fuel lets us move at least 25% faster. It depends on the type of class for a ship girl. Some destroyers get up to 50% movement boosts if they use their reserves of fuel."

"So how much do you benefit from using fuel?"

"I'm a Special-Type Destroyer, so I can move up to 30% faster with 60% faster acceleration."

"Is that the same for other destroyers, too?"

"No. Like I said, it varies."

"Ammo...is self-explanatory. What about steel?"

"Steel helps us heal faster. Again, since our anatomy mimics that of humans, we eventually will heal over time, but using steel helps us repair much faster."

"Repairs? So how exactly do you use steel to heal?"

"Mainly through steel patches. If we are wounded, we apply the patches to wherever we're injured."

"And what about deeper and more serious wounds?"

Murakumo shrugs. "The development team didn't think that far, because they built us with the intention of never taking enough damage to be life-threatening." She glares at Damon. "You would know, since you stabbed me in the head with a knife, so why bother asking?"

"Just because clearly you ship girls can withstand amounts of damage only the ships that you embody can resist, doesn't mean I won't neglect the times when something bad does happen," Damon retorts. "I want to be prepared for every situation, even the most improbable ones."

"Hmph. Someone like you trying to look out for me? Don't even bother. It makes me sick."

"Even if I didn't want to, I have to. Tell me what bauxite is for."

"It's for resisting damage. The more we consume bauxite, we can resist taking damage for longer."

"That simple, huh..."

"What, did you expect some long, overly complicated explanation?"

"Almost."

Murakumo rolls her eyes.

"You want some?"

Looking back at Damon, she notices that he is offering her a bag of sunflower seeds.

"...what's this?"

"Sunflower seeds. It's a snack - it'll keep your hunger down until I can make us some real dinner."

Murakumo looks at the bag with a nasty look.

"No, I don't want any."

Damon puts the bag over the ashtray. "Suit yourself," he says, popping a few seeds into his mouth and chewing silently. The utility truck continues its nighttime trek across the state of Texas.

* * *

Watching the campfire burn, Murakumo sits on a supply box that Damon took out of the back of the truck to use as seats, looking on as Damon cooks some strips of bacon, sausage patties, broccoli, and tomatoes over the fire on a frying pan. They are sitting off the side of the freeway on the strip of grass.

"How much do you want to eat?" Damon asks.

"How should I know? I'm hungry, I'll eat what I get," Murakumo mutters, trying to hide the fact that her mouth is salivating from the delicious smell of bacon.

"That being said, you've never been activated before I found you, right?"

"Only once before...when I was initially assembled. I was then shut off for packing and shipping."

"I see."

"Why?"

"I'm just curious as to how you're able to perceive what 'food' is even though this is supposed to be your first time ever eating food."

"I told you. We're constructed with human bodies. Whatever humans can perceive, we can, too. And it's not like it's not weird for me, too. I don't even know what that stuff's called, but I know it'll probably taste good."

"You're pretty lucky, too. Food like this is extremely rare nowadays - you can't get it outside most CCPL posts and other major survivor communities. You'd find yourself eating canned food and anti-radiation food like the stuff in the back of the truck."

"But food is food. What's the difference?"

"If you want, we can live off that canned food for the next week, and I'll make proper food like this afterwards. You'll notice the difference right away."

"Why, is canned food bad for you?"

"No, but it gets old. Really fast."

"Sounds terrible."

"If your stomach can get used to it, it stops being a big deal. And if you don't have anything else to eat, you're not going to _not_ eat it."

Damon turns over the strips of bacon, causing the frying pan to sizzle more. Damon adds a small dash of maple syrup over the bacon and sausage patties.

"Who exactly are you, anyway?" Murakumo murmurs, tucking her legs into her chest on her box. "You said you'd tell me why you've come to get me. The answers you gave me didn't tell me anything at all...before those...men...came along."

Damon shakes the frying pan a bit. "Like I said...my name's Damon Polchow. Born on August 31, 2012...two years after the nukes fell."

"Wait, what do you mean by nukes? What are nukes?"

"Nukes. Short for 'nuclear missiles'. I suppose in terminology that you're familiar with, they're special types of torpedoes that are launched from ground stations or big vessels like oversized submarines or jets that carry warheads that contain nuclear explosive devices. They're responsible for making the world what it is now. They have the power to wreck this entire planet a dozen times over - and they nearly did just that."

Murakumo shudders. "...I've never heard of such weaponry before."

"It's because those bombs aren't just ordinary bombs. They unleash immense power that you get from splitting or fusing atoms as a weapon. It's why we called them 'weapons of mass destruction' or WMD's for short, because that's exactly what they do. Wreak mass destruction."

"Will there be more?"

"No. No one in their right mind that's still living wants more nukes to go off. The world's fucked up enough already as it is, and people are sick 'n tired of having to deal with radiation and shit all the damn time. Not to mention the fact that it's total anarchy out here, outside of the CCPL posts."

"...so you're seventeen?"

"Eighteen in two and a half months."

Damon glances at Murakumo.

"...how old would you be in human terms? Do you know?"

"The ship that I was modeled after had an active lifespan of 14 years. I would imagine that I share the same age, unless it is different for whatever reason."

"Your height doesn't really seem to be that of a 14-year-old, though."

"Then how old do you think I am?"

Damon shrugs. "More like sixteen? Seventeen? Beats me. Your mentality tells me sixteen or so."

Damon starts putting food on two plates, dividing the food evenly and handing one of the plates with a fork to Murakumo.

"If you can't finish it, give it to me so I can finish it for you. It's a shame to let good food go to waste."

Murakumo chews on some bacon. "...with something as good as this, how is it even possible for me to think about just throwing this away? At least _I _don't throw things away like you do."

Damon sighs. "You really like opening old wounds, don't you? Drop it already. What's done is done. And I can't say I'm proud of it, either."

They eat in silence. Only the fire crackles and chuckles as they consume their dinner.

"So you don't know what life was like before...before the war?" Murakumo asks.

"No. I'm what they call 'Generation Zero', which basically describes anyone born after World War III. People who've been born into the hell that the world became after the nukes fell and destroyed everything. So whatever the world was like before my time, I only know through pictures, films, whatever data that shows the world what it was like before the radiation. And through the older survivors who made it."

"What was it like growing up in this kind of place?"

"Utter trash," Damon says curtly. "I won't lie; it sucked. It fucking sucked. Because I was born only two years after Doomsday, there was still a lot of confusion going on. Mostly, people just fighting each other for scarce resources that couldn't sustain everyone. I was one of those kids who had to do anything to get something to eat. Those days were rough...before I got moved to a CCPL post, I usually got bounced around from one community to the next that was controlled by some local power holder. Like a family clan leader or something or a mayor. Usually they'd be corrupt as fuck, just hoggin' all the good shit for themselves 'n leavin' everyone else to squabble over the rotten crap that people couldn't even live off of properly. As I got older, society in general started getting more organized and less shitty, so I suppose things got better, but not by much. Not until I learned how to survive on my own."

"What about your parents?"

Damon takes a small sip of water from his canteen. "Mom's dead. Died when I was two."

"Oh...then...your dad...what about - "

"Apparently, my mom told me he was part of a secret military team tasked to stop the nukings when they started dropping, but they got caught in a nuke somewhere and all died. I don't know if my mom was being serious or not, but that's all I have to work with."

Murakumo blinks awkwardly at her food, not knowing what to say.

"...sorry. Maybe I shouldn't've asked."

"Why not? You wanted to know something about me, so I told you."

"W-Well...now...now I just feel...awkward, for asking...you know?"

"What, about my dead parents? They're long dead and gone. I couldn't care less if you asked about them or asked me to talk about them. Doesn't matter to me."

"...okay, whatever then..."

"Besides, it's not just me too. There are plenty of people in this world now who don't have families anymore. Either killed because of the nukes or what came after. If you want to feel sorry for me, feel sorry for those people first."

"I-I'm not _trying _to feel bad for you!"

"Not that I need it. At least I'm fortunate enough to have developed the skills and willpower necessary to start paving a path of my own in this hell on earth."

Damon bites into a hot sausage patty.

"Then let me ask _you_. Don't you oftentimes wonder what having parents or family feels like?"

Murakumo stops chewing.

"...quite frankly, no, because that kind of thing was never pre-programmed into our main executive files. But...if you mention it..."

"I'm just pointing out the fact that you're asking me about my parents, yet someone like you shouldn't've ever had parents."

"...why? What's with that tone?"

"Nothing. I just find it quite interesting that you were built to be so human-like. At least it's pretty clear that your development team spent a lot of time focusing on your human aspects."

"Like I said, they wanted us to act like proper citizens of human society."

"I hear you."

They eat for a bit wordlessly.

"Do you have something to drink?" Murakumo asks.

Damon tosses her some water in a small juicebox-like container.

"It's the only thing they got. Either that, or you'll have to end up drinking irradiated water in some damn ditch somewhere."

"Why? What's so wrong with irradiated water?"

Damon looks at her with slight horror. "Are you serious?"

"How many times am I going to keep telling you? I don't know what this freakin' radiation stuff is! All I know is that it's not good for humans, and you seem like you keep forgetting who exactly I am!"

Damon ruffles his dark blue hair with some annoyance. "It's not that I'm forgetting who you are, it's just - " He cuts himself off out of frustration. "Look. I know you're a ship girl, but to me, you're also not too different from a normal human girl, okay? I'm not going to have you eat what's bad for me, too. That's how we're doing things."

Murakumo chuckles darkly. "There you go again, pretending like you actually care about people..."

Damon rolls his eyes. "Are you planning on always mentioning that whenever you can?"

"Of course, because you're a scumbag and you should feel bad, Admiral."

"Yeah, and said scumbag Admiral is feeding you dinner right now."

"As is your obligation, you being the person who activated me. I could've been found eventually by a person who's better of a human than you."

"Ouch. Did your programmers also program you to talk like that to your superior?"

Murakumo shrugs, sipping on her small straw. "Who knows...you can find that out yourself, can't you? With that little hacking knife of yours." She swallows her mouthful of food, and then turns to gaze at Damon. "Actually...what kind of technology was that? How _did_ you manage to override my executive command prompt, anyhow?"

Damon chews on his food for a bit, then reaches for his knife handle, tucking it in his hand and showing it to Murakumo.

"Part of the skills I learned as a kid was hacking. I remember when I was just a toddler, way back, when I found out that by punching in those numbers that I saw the kids' overseer at the kindergarten putting into that touchpad on the wall, that I could let everyone go wild in the playground. As I got older, I managed to learn more intricate hacking and programming from an older guy who used to be a con artist with hacking as his side trade in the same CCPL post as me. We used to hack our way into any security clearance we met and helped ourselves to good food and better supplies than most survivors ever had a chance to even see back then. That was when I realized that I needed to learn more about computer science and security technologies - and the ways to bypass or destroy them electronically, so I volunteered for a private security group that contracted out to the American government forces trying to rally the survivors and gather them up into those CCPL posts, providing electronic storage and security technology like electronic codelocks and number pads. Probably the best investment of my life, to be honest."

Damon flips out the nanoblade again, and Murakumo can hardly see the blade from the angle that Damon displays the weapon.

"I built this nanoblade a year ago, with the help of a steelmaker friend of mine that owed me a few favors for all the shit that I did for him. It's an all-purpose hacking and anti-security tool that lets me through most security protocols that're in use by CCPL posts and government facilities. I can load whatever custom scripts onto it whenever I want to get whatever electronic info I want. It probably won't work for absolutely everything, but it's damned close, since it hasn't failed me so far. Including you."

"Huh. So you're smarter than you look."

"I'll take that as a complement, even though I know you're trying to mock me."

"Oh, really..."

"What's with the monotone voice?"

"Oh, nothing..."

Damon puts his knife away and finishes the rest of his food in silence.

"So, about this radiation stuff..." Murakumo begins again, "I've been wondering. You keep mentioning how it's so poisonous to humans and bad for 'em and stuff, but I think you mentioned that you're an exception. Why is that? Are you immune to it?"

Damon reaches into his back pocket, takes out a small box that resembles a cigarette box, and takes out a long, thin cigarette-like object with a yellow ring at the end. He twists the end off where the yellow band is, causing the cigarette to spark momentarily, and drags on the cigarette for a moment before slowly exhaling a pale, slightly yellow cloud of residue.

"I'll begin with what happened to my family; specifically, my mom. She was heavily irradiated when the nukes fell - she was at Los Angeles, which was one of the places that got hit first. She managed to survive long enough to conceive and give birth to me, though, as I've already mentioned, she didn't last for much longer after that - presumably 'cause her body couldn't handle both the ongoing damage she took from radiation poisoning and the stress of childbirth. But anyway, when I was born, she passed the radiation off to me through heavy genetic mutations."

Damon points at his eyes and hair.

"See my hair? Dark blue. That's not a normal human hair color. Nor are my eyes - they used to called me Chameleon 'cause of what my eyes do."

"Chameleon...they change color?"

"Yeah, but more accurately, they let me see in most conditions that usually impair lines of sight. Night vision, thermal vision, infrared vision, even black-and-white monochrome, for whatever reason..."

"Sheesh, that sounds mighty convenient."

"It is. Apparently, each state of vision I have corresponds with its own color, which is cool, I guess. But most importantly, I was born with a genetic resistance to radiation. That's why I'm not sitting in a hazmat suit and a gas mask right now."

"Sounds like you came ready-made to live in this kind of a world."

"It must be a sign of some kind."

"Do I detect sarcasm?"

"No, of course not, what makes you think that..."

"Yeah, it is..."

"I'm as sarcastic as you are monotone."

"...okay..."

Murakumo hands Damon her empty lunchbox-like plastic container. "Here."

Damon takes it and stacks it on top of his in the frying pan that he has set behind him for cleaning. Murakumo sniffs the air.

"...is this...is this lemon...?"

"Yeah. It's 'cause of my cigarette. I'm surprised you know what fruits are, seeing how rare they've been since the war."

"I'm just as surprised as you are. I suppose there's a lot of things I'm supposed to know that I'm not aware of yet..."

Damon takes another long drag on his cigarette. "These are fruit cigarettes. When the war wrecked the global economy, trafficking of fruits and veggies and other foods that provided lots of vitamin C were in extreme shortage, so they started passing out vitamin C pills and tablets instead. Then, a couple years ago, a few guys who used to be executives of cigarette brand companies like Marlboro and Camel figured out a way to make vitamin C into a fine powder that you could inhale, kinda like normal cigarettes, except without all that chemical shit and smoke. They made these 'cause the survivors who used to smoke a whole lot back before the war were dyin' to have something to smoke, since tobacco products were so rare they were used as currency in lots of places, and contraband drugs like weed and heroin and other shit like that were banned altogether in order to prevent a black market from developing."

Gazing into the wisps of the burning campfire, Damon sticks the cigarette in his mouth and leans back, his hands on his box.

"They figured out that whatever they did to these fruit cigarettes, it actually was a pretty good way to get vitamin C into the body, so it's pretty popular nowadays, especially with the kids, since for whatever bullshit reason they're apparently completely safe for kids too...probably horseshit, but oh well..."

Damon pulls out his box and offers it to Murakumo. "Wanna try one, or no?'

Murakumo hesitates, wondering whether it really was a good idea for her to take one. She finally gives in and pulls one slender cigarette out.

"...so, uh, how do I...uh...smoke this...?" she asks a bit awkwardly, staring at it.

"You see the end with the little yellow band?"

"Yeah..."

"Pinch it, and twist it."

"Er, which way?"

"Doesn't matter. Twist it until you hear a small spark. That's a tiny chemical mixture that lights the fruit powder inside and turns it into a vapor. Once you do that, you put the other end that you didn't twist in your mouth, so that the end is touching the tip of your tongue, and you breathe through your mouth slowly. Breathe too fast, especially for you, since this is your first fruit cigarette, and you'll cough pretty badly."

Murakumo follows his instructions, and she imitates Damon's motions and inhales the cigarette vapor slowly. Immediately, the pungent, sharp, refreshing taste of lemons saturates her taste buds and fills her lungs, and soon, their campsite is loaded with the scent of lemons.

"The lungs take the vaporized vitamin C and load them onto your blood cells," Damon explains as Murakumo exhales and watches her breath materialize in the same pale yellow haze that Damon exhaled. "Your blood cells then circulate around your vessels and distribute the vitamin C wherever needed."

Murakumo frowns. "What _don't_ you know?"

"A lot of things, but what I do know happens to be very important." Damon cracks his knuckles. "It's impossible to know everything, anyhow. I think you should only know what you'll need, and that's it. Any extra knowledge is either wasted brainpower or just trivia."

"Doesn't sound convincing, coming from someone like you," Murakumo scoffs, taking another puff of her lemon cigarette.

"Thanks for the complement."

"I-I wasn't complementing you, you idiot! Shut up with that!"

Damon sighs, and standing up with his cigarette in between his teeth, he walks back to their utility truck and lifts out one of the special weapon cases, dragging it to the light of the campfire. He also brings his MK-14 Rogue Chassis battle rifle, strapped to his back. He places the weapon case in front of him as a table and sets his MK-14 upright on its deployed bipod and pulls out a few cleaning materials and a small gray rag.

"What are you doing now?" Murakumo asks, watching Damon disassemble his rifle.

"Field-stripping," Damon mutters, putting the parts of his gun that need cleaning and maintenance. "It's important for a gun like this to always be clean, so I clean it whenever I can, like now. Can't afford to have my gun malfunction just 'cause I forgot to clean it once - it might cost me my life, or something equally as bad."

"Equally as bad? What's as bad as losing your life?" Murakumo murmurs, slowly puffing out another lemon-flavored breath.

"Hmm...losing you, perhaps...?" Damon replies nonchalantly, wiping the barrel of his gun meticulously to clear it of gunpowder residue.

Murakumo's cheeks redden slightly. "L-Losing me...what's that supposed to mean..."

"...obviously I mean that all the effort I put into dragging my ass all the way down south just to get you would be wasted if something were to happen to you. I'd rather not let that happen."

"I'm _that_ important to you...? Besides, what're you even going to use me for...?"

Damon holds up his cleaned rifle barrel to inspect it for any missed smudges or gunpowder buildup.

"To restore the world to what it was before," Damon says. "I'm tired of living in this world, watching people suffer in a world that feels like it's dying just 'cause a few fucking idiots decided to nuke each other. I'm gonna find out a way to turn this world back to normal - but first, in order to do that, I'll have to take control of the entire world."

Murakumo nearly drops her cigarette. "...um...you're going to use _me_ to conquer the world? What kind of cliched story plot is this?"

"Not just you. That's why I kept asking you if you knew where other ship girls were located, so that I know exactly where to go to find more."

"Uh..."

"Specifically, these are my objectives: first, to find and understand the ship girls that were produced as a result of Project F.L.E.E.T. Second, to activate and command as many ship girls as possible to create the 'Kantai Collection', an alternate name the development team apparently used for you ship girls when they finished every one of you and activated you all together - basically just the entire fleet put together under one central authority. Third, to reinstate the global hegemony of the United Nations by assisting the major world governments with their consolidations of power over rogue areas that are controlled by local power holders, like warlords and crime bosses and whatnot. Fourth, use the Kantai Collection to put me in the head of power of the United Nations to turn the world back to pre-war conditions."

Damon puts his rifle back together and slaps a fresh 7.62x51mm NATO magazine into the magazine receiver, nodding with satisfaction as the loud _tcha-__schak!_ of the charging handle locks the first bullet in place.

"Initially, I thought about just building up my own private military company to do the job, but as soon as I heard the rumors about you ship girls, I thought, why bother having to worry about employment costs and shit like that when I can practically own my own fleet of ship girls who'll do as I say? I can command my own army - well, fleet, in your case. It's perfect...especially for a selfish bastard like me."

"You're starting to sound like some sort of evil mastermind."

"I probably might. But if it's to get rid of this world that I'm sick of living in, then so be it. I'm out of flying fucks to give at this point."

Damon sets aside his MK-14 Rogue Chassis behind him on the box he is sitting on and opens up the supply case at his feet. He reaches down and carefully lifts out the Precision DSR-50 anti-materiel sniper rifle to inspect it.

"What if we don't meet your expectations? And also, we're supposed to be equipped with military hardware that's about eighty years old now, if it's 2029 now. Surely military technology has improved a lot since our time?" Murakumo asks, watching Damon with lazy eyes as he peers through the mildot 4x telescopic sight.

"You're also forgetting that the war also knocked back our technology a couple decades," Damon points out. "Sure, it's definitely true that our military specs and hardware and shit like that before the bombs fell made your World War II-era equipment outdated and obsolete, but from what I've read and researched, apparently Japanese ships were state-of-the-art battleships that couldn't get any better than they were with the current generation of military technology at the time. Your main weapon systems are more than enough to wreck most things that stand in your way, especially now that the war left most of the world's militaries virtually inoperable."

Damon stands up and sets the DSR-50 sniper rifle on the supply box he was sitting on and kneels down, taking out a small rectangular module with a few small wires and attaching them to the left side of the rifle.

"I'd say your biggest threat is from the air. We used to have the technology to make fighter jets go faster than the speed of sound and carry smart bombs and missiles that'll sink a destroyer like you from the stratosphere. Luckily for you and me, virtually all of our aerial military hardware and vehicles can't fly, either because the air bases that they need to launch from and resupply at got bombed or otherwise shut down by natural causes or a lack of pilots, or because they just can't fly because of their expensive maintenance or the fact that if they do fly, the pilots inside'll die because of all the radiation in the air. Granted, we can't assume that _all_ jets are grounded - there are some that I'd expect can still operate under current weather conditions, not to mention helicopters don't care for this shit at all, so..."

Damon turns to Murakumo and notices that her head is bobbing up and down slowly as she is starting to nod off to sleep.

"Murakumo?"

Her name snaps her back to attention. "H-Huh? Sorry, what? What did I miss..."

"Are you sleepy?"

"N-No, what makes you s-say that - "

"You were nodding off just now."

"N-Nonsense, no I w-wasn't..."

"If you're sleepy, you should go to sleep."

"It's fine, I'm telling you..."

Damon shrugs as he turns to his sniper rifle again, opening the module and activating the screen, revealing a heads-up display that shows proximities of sentient entities by their heartbeat - a heartbeat sensor. He fiddles with the configurations for a few minutes, optimizing the sensor to his personal preferences before shutting it off and closing the screen. He carries the sniper rifle back into its supply case again and closes the lid to store away in the back of the truck when Damon realizes that Murakumo is now soundly asleep, lying on the box that she was sitting on. He carries the supply case back and stores it away again, then comes back to lift up Murakumo and take her to the shotgun seat of the truck and lay her on the chair. Reclining the chair back so that it serves as a makeshift bed, Damon then goes to his backpack sitting in his driver's seat and pulls out a compact brown travel blanket and lays it over Murakumo. Returning to the campfire with a small bottle of cleaning solvent, Damon finds Murakumo's half-finished lemon cigarette still lying on her box, takes it, and sticks it with his own cigarette as he starts cleaning the frying pan and lunchboxes. It would be a waste of a good cigarette if Damon were to throw it away.

At least these ship girls would be a lot more fun to work with, Damon thinks to himself. He shouldn't get mad at the development team too much, since as a man, Damon couldn't complain.

"Doesn't make 'em any less perverted," Damon chuckles to himself as the night passes on.


	4. False Oasis

Murakumo stirs and opens her eyes, blinking in the face of blinding hazy morning light. Rubbing her eyes, she finds a blanket covering her on her lowered truck seat that she does not recall sleeping with when she first fell asleep. She is about to raise the truck seat and stretch her arms when suddenly -

_**PA-OOOOOOOOOOOOON!**_

"Eeek!?" Murakumo yelps out of reflex in reaction to the extremely loud gunshot that she has not heard before. Granted, she has only heard the pops of AK-47's and M16-A2's and the strong thumps of Damon's MK-14 Rogue Chassis, but this gunshot is more destructive and ear-shattering than any she has heard before. She peers out of the truck windows, trying to focus her slightly blurry vision in the hazy morning sunlight, and she can make out the sight of Damon kneeling behind one of the supply boxes that they were sitting on for dinner last night, peering intently through the scope of the AMP DSR-50 bullpup sniper rifle propped up on its bipod and sitting on top of the supply box. Murakumo watches as Damon slowly pulls back the bolt and ejects the spent .50-caliber casing, catching it in midair before ejecting the magazine, sliding the bolt closed, and putting the safety back on.

Murakumo exits the truck, leaving the blanket on her seat and closing the door after her as she approaches Damon, who begins packing up the DSR-50 rifle.

"What were you doing? That last shot of yours scared the crap out of me," Murakumo asks. "Don't tell me you were trying to use that as an alarm clock to get me to wake up..."

Damon frowns at her, not interrupting his progress. "Do you know how expensive of an alarm that would be?"

"Expensive?"

Damon shows her the casing that he caught, holding it by his thick fingernails so that his skin wouldn't get burned by the intense heat still packed within the metal of the casing. "In a world like ours, where any and every resource is valuable enough to the point where people would fight and kill each other to have, fifty-caliber bullets like these are hella expensive to buy, let alone produce. If I really wanted to wake you up, I would just shake you or something."

"Then what were you doing?"

"Test-firing." Damon closes the lid to the DSR-50's weapon case and pats it. "The only other opportunity I've had in using military hardware of this scale and high-techness was when I flew as a passenger in one of the cockpit of a Russian MI-24 that a Russian pilot that defected over to American soil brought with him after the nukes dropped. That guy's fuckin' rich as hell - you wouldn't guess how useful his helicopter became in transporting heavy stuff like vehicles and large debris..."

"So what's so special about this thing? Aren't all guns the same? You use them to shoot and kill people, right?"

"The base purpose of a gun is to kill people, yes," Damon nods. "But just like how there's an infinite amount of ways to kill a human being, there's an infinite amount of ways to build and configure a gun and its purpose to tweak _how _it goes about killing someone." He taps the case containing the DSR-50 again. "This is a sniper rifle - it's meant to shoot people from a very far distance, typically a distance where your target won't know that he or she's being targeted until they're already dead. This sniper rifle is also specifically modified to hold and fire the fifty-caliber cartridge, which can also heavily damage vehicles if you know where to shoot - not to mention whatever human being you shoot can basically be counted as deader than dead."

Damon grabs the AK-47 that is standing on its wooden stock against the side of the supply box and tosses it to Murakumo, who catches it. "You're going to be practicing with that AK so you know how to shoot a gun."

"E-Eh..." Murakumo looks awkwardly down at her Russian assault rifle. "...but I've never shot before..."

"Which is why I'm going to have you learn right now. There's a first for everything, and some are bound to happen, like firing a gun. Soon, you'll know what it feels like to kill someone, too."

"That second part is something I don't want to do, after seeing what you did yesterday."

Damon sighs. "You're a destroyer ship. I don't want to be told that - your whole existence revolves around the destruction of other ships, and with it, the killing of lives as well. Don't give me that bullshit."

Coming close to Murakumo, Damon reaches his arms out to guide Murakumo's arms, but she recoils away quickly.

"W-What do you think you're doing? Don't touch me!"

"Murakumo," Damon says sternly. "This is an order; I'm having you learn the basics of marksmanship. Now do as I say."

Murakumo grinds her teeth and hisses as Damon guides her arms to a proper firing stance, but she does not resist.

"I don't have time to teach you the full course on basic firing etiquette, because personally I think about 90% of it is sheer bullshit anyway," Damon says. "There's a few basic principles that apply to all guns. Don't fire guns from the hip unless you really have to, because then you won't hit a goddamn thing. Always aim down the sights if you want something killed or downed, like this. Can you see the sights on the gun?"

Murakumo's ship nature, along with her built-in targeting system, naturally and intuitively locates and perfectly lines up the iron sights of the AK-47, and Murakumo perfectly holds the weapon, ready to fire.

"Good, looks like your ship's targeting mechanism also helps you with small firearms like these. Next, check that your safety is off if you want to fire. It's on the right side, see where it covers the bolt lever channel? On the AK, if it's up like this, that means you can't fire it. You have to set it down like this to be able to fire. Whenever you're not in an imminent combat scenario, always have the safety on. You don't wanna be flinging around bullets just because you accidentally pressed the trigger when your safety was off. This is the select fire mechanism, where you can switch from full-auto to semi-auto. Semi-auto lets you only fire one bullet per trigger pull, while full-auto lets you dump as many bullets downrange as long as you hold down the trigger. Don't use full-auto unless you really need something dead, like I said before - otherwise, it'll only be a waste of ammunition. For this model, you can fire it up to 400 meters, if you can calculate that. Because I'd expect that you'd have internal distance calculation and measurement tools of some kind, I bet you can fire it more accurately than that. Remember that the AK holds thirty shots, so count them; it should be easy for you. If you reload a magazine without shooting all thirty shots, remember that it'll still have one bullet chambered in the barrel, so you'll start with thirty-one bullets instead of thirty. Do you see that tree out there?"

Damon points off into the distance, and Murakumo tracks his target and instantly finds it.

"You mean that tree with the broken branches on the right?"

"That's it. It's the only tree out there anyway. That should be, let's say, around a hundred meters away. I want you to put some rounds into it so you can get a feel for how shooting a gun works. Remember: take off the safety, check fire mode, and shoot. And always make sure to keep your finger off the trigger until you know what you want to shoot or if you're in a close-quarters situation and you need to be able to shoot right away. That's called trigger discipline, something not enough people have these days. On my mark: three, two, one, mark."

Murakumo does as she is told: she flicks down the safety catch, sets the fire mode to semi-automatic, acquires her target through her iron sights, and takes a deep breath before pulling the trigger for the first time. The heavy recoil of the AK-47 kicks against her shoulder catches her by surprise.

"Shit, I forgot to mention that the gun has a pretty good kick if you're not used to it," Damon mentions, his hand against Murakumo's back to help her regain her stance.

"It's nothing, I was built to handle the recoil of 12.7cm guns for shit's sake," Murakumo mutters, suddenly determined to conquer the beast of the gun known as the AK-47. "Just watch..."

Sure enough, Murakumo, true to her claims, fires the rest of the magazine perfectly without any trouble, and all twenty-nine bullets rip into the tree in a neat circle.

"Awesome," Damon remarks, noting the tight circle of bullet holes in the tree through a pair of binoculars he fetched out of his backpack. "Your tree-killing skills are remarkable."

Murakumo glares at him wordlessly at his blatant but nonchalant sarcasm.

"And lastly," Damon continues, taking the AK-47 from Murakumo's hands, "you'll need to know how to reload a gun. A lot of these aspects a different from the gun to gun, but for the AK, watch me."

He presses the magazine release lever behind the magazine and simultaneously pulls out the empty magazine, grabs a fresh magazine he had stored in his jeans pocket for the demonstration, and inserts it in again until the magazine clicks.

"After you do that, pull back on the charging handle all the way to make sure the first bullet locks," Damon instructs. "If you've spent all thirty shots, then you'll have to do this. You don't do it when you haven't fired all the bullets, because you'll be loading two bullets into the chamber, and bad things happen when you try shooting two bullets at once, so don't do it. Try it."

Murakumo takes back the AK and repeats the process, but she makes sure to secure the charging handle to load the first bullet.

"Once you get the hang of it, you can reload it in different and more efficient ways, but it'll be up to you to find them. Now try using this." Damon hands her the MP5-K submachine gun from his backpack. "It's got an effective range of only a hundred meters because it's a submachine gun - more meant for close quarters stuff."

Murakumo takes the submachine gun as well. "Admiral, can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"I'm a ship girl. What's the point of me learning how to do this? I mean, it feels like this kind of stuff is innate, and I know how to do it just fine, but this isn't what I was meant to do."

"I get that...I was wondering when you'd ask me something like that, actually," Damon says. "But in our world of today, ships are too niche of a role to fulfill everything that I want to accomplish. There'll be things that I need to do that involves your help that would require that everyone know how to fight in ground combat, even if it's not optimal to your skills. Still, it's not like it's clearly bad for you to fight like this. I know you're a ship girl, but in my eyes, you're also a soldier, and I want my soldiers to know how to do everything I know how to do."

Damon pulls out his Glock 37 from his holster, aims with his left hand at the tree, and fires a single shot. The bullet dinks the tree right in the center of Murakumo's AK-47 bullet grouping.

"You're a machine in a human body. Thus, I expect that you'll learn everything that I teach you really quickly. And if you expand on them like I want you to, you'll know how to survive in a world like this a lot better than I ever could, because in the end, there are things that machines can do that humans can't. Now pay attention here..."

Damon teaches Murakumo what he knows about firearms for the next hour.

* * *

After that hour, Damon and Murakumo sit cooped up in the utility truck as he drives eastbound along the same highway. Fortunately for the survivors of the war in the United States, the vast majority of the nation's highway systems escaped debilitating damage from the earthquakes, though in some places, scars left behind by the quakes still mar the earth and bar drivers and vehicles from passing over safely without detours. After about seven hours of driving, only interrupted by bathroom and food breaks, their utility truck rolls into the former city of Mobile, Alabama.

After the outbreak of World War III, some American Southerners saw and seized the opportunity to carve out their own familial kingdoms that only they held sovereignty over. Within a few years after the bombs fell, there were at least four dozen separate such entities of local power holders squabbling over one another for control over local resources and the ability to tax people who had no choice but to live under their "protection". Some who were wealthy enough had quickly bought their own radiation cleaning equipment and supplies, but most of these power holders, even though some of them had the money to buy such equipment, chose to hide in underground bunkers and facilities and simply wait for federal and volunteer radiation clean up crews to do the dirty work for them. On top of which, after their areas had been cleaned up enough to live above-ground safely, those people and their followers forcibly drove out the volunteers, oftentimes violently. The death toll never became significant enough to call for governmental or an otherwise coordinated action against these Southern power holders, but it cemented their reputation across the rest of North America as general scumbags waiting to take advantage of anything and anyone to protect their "sovereignty", a reputation that certainly held true for the most part.

Now, the number of sovereignties has decreased from four dozen down to only six, located in the cities of Little Rock, Nashville, Mobile, Atlanta, Orlando, and Charlotte. Such a political division of power can harken back to the days of the American Civil War, reminiscent of the old Confederacy. However, this time, these six municipalities are all vied for competition of any kind and are more than willing to wage war over the smallest and most trivial reasons in the name of maintaining sovereignty.

"So in other words," Murakumo mutters as she munches on a granola bar, "they're like kings in a medieval society."

Damon glances over at his companion in surprise. "You know about medieval societies?"

"For some reason I have a backlog of historical textbooks in my central memory database. I'm guessing whoever was in charge of my development project was a history professor or something."

Damon shrugs. "They were all scientists, so it's not surprising. The people who built you and the other ship girls had to be proteges and people who were probably decades ahead in technological intelligence and development. Otherwise, your production would've never been possible, even for the technology that we had back then. I'd imagine it wouldn't have been too difficult for them to pick up multiple Ph.D's in different fields."

The utility truck drives to a stop before a heavily stacked barricade reinforced with electric fencing and barbed wire. Two wooden deer stands loom behind the armed barricade that restricts the highway's access into the rest of the city, and a night shift guard, armed with a simple .22 hunting rifle and a .357 Magnum revolver on his hip, gets up from his chair and waves at Damon, who rolls down the window to talk to him.

"Ay yo, brotha!" the guardsman yells in a slightly intoxicated southern accent. "Ya plannin' ta stay da night in dis here town?"

"Yeah, we're looking for a place to stay," Damon replies. "Think you can open the gate for us?"

"I will, but Boss's regulations say right he-ah dat all visitors gotta pay toll tax!" The guardsman lifts up a small leather-bound book and waves it around.

"Then how much is it?"

"If yer got cash, gonna be twentah a soul 'n fortah a car, but seems he-ah dat you gotcher-self a mighty fine roadsta! Dat's gonna cost ya extra, let's see...dat gon' be sixtah, mister!"

Damon reaches back into his backpack in the back seat and fishes out some twenty-dollar bills, then exits the truck to give the money to the guardsman who has climbed down from the tower.

"Thank ya, thank ya," the young guardsman says as he pockets the money. "I'll open up dis he-ah gate, so sit tight, ya hear?"

"I appreciate it," Damon replies. "But it's rare for people to be taking paper cash as money these days. Your boss have a use for it?"

"Oh ya, you betcher three best cattle he's got somethin' to get wit' all dat paper cash!" the guardsman hollers back as he climbs back up the tower to open the barricade.

"Is that information classified, or may I ask about it?"

"Oh, sure, you kin go 'head 'n ask 'bout it! Boss's collectin' some funds ter pay fer sum big ol' guns!"

"What kind of guns?"

"Dem big guns!" the guardsman cackles madly as he punches a small button in the control panel in his deer stand tower. The ground rumbles slightly, and the reinforced barricade splits apart in half and makes way for the rest of the highway so that the utility truck can pass through. Damon hops into the driver's seat and gives the guardsman a quick two-finger salute.

"Tell your boss he's a good man," Damon calls out to the guardsman. "It's not everyday people in his position let strangers into their territory just for a fee."

"Yeah, we all pretty lucky we got a man like him ta bring in da honest folks!" the guardsman calls back, lifting his whiskey flask in response to Damon's salute. "Tell ya what, why don'tcha head downtown? Boss's a real nice guy, y'all kin even talk ta 'im!"

Damon rolls down the window as the truck keeps rolling on down the highway for downtown Mobile.

"Just how bad is it, exactly?" Murakumo asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, you talked about how Southern United States is broken up into six municipalities, right? During the ride here. It seemed like by the way you were talking to that guy, this place is better than the others."

"That's because it is," Damon replies, twisting the end of another lemon cigarette and enjoying the fresh fruity taste. "This stronghold down here in Alabama is surprisingly chill when you compare it to other strongholds across the South, because the 'Boss' that the guy on the tower was talking about is a man by the name of Baxter Harrison. I hear the locals call him 'Pops' 'cause he's a really chill guy who isn't a selfish prick like the other 'Bosses'. After the world got nuked, he was the one who brought together the survivors down in the South that didn't like how people were always fighting for power and control."

"How much land does this Mr. Harrison control?"

"Basically, from that barricade all the way east to Tallahassee in Florida, and north til Birmingham, if you can imagine that."

"A pretty big state, all things considered."

"I suppose, but when you compare the size of Harrison's state to the other states, it's average, if not on the smaller side of things. And lately, I've been hearing that this place's getting attacked more 'n more frequently by the neighboring rival states. Probably why that dude at the gate said Harrison was planning to buy some big guns."

"What did he mean by 'big guns', anyway?"

Damon scratches his chin. "I'd say artillery pieces. I hear that some of the southerners are blacksmiths who used to forge small cannon pieces for rich antique collectors and historical filmmakers who needed, like, Civil War-era or colonial era cannon or stuff like that. They can still be a pain in the ass to deal with if they're used properly, so I'm guessing that's what Harrison's trying to buy."

Murakumo nods and gazes out the window. But she then snaps her gaze back at Damon soon after.

"Wait a minute...when did you get that much money?"

"Wages I've saved up from odd jobs I've worked over the years," Damon says. "Most jobs usually just paid in meal vouchers at CCPL cafeterias or random junk shit that occasionally turned out to be useful or interesting, but every so often I'd get a job that paid cold hard cash. Normally in a post-apocalyptic society, the currency prior to a disaster goes out of commission, but it seems like people still like using the dollar 'cause it's just convenient, and trade hasn't stopped enough to where people can't use their paper money any longer, so why not."

"...what the hell are these...'CCPL' things...? You keep talking about them, and I think I know what you mean, but..."

"Sorry, that's my bad. CCPL stands for Cleaned Centers for Protected Living - basically government-established communities for American survivors in areas where radiation levels have been cleaned to the point of human habitation. It's just that everyone knows what it means, so I forgot that you weren't aware."

"So are these Southern states CCPL's?"

"No. They're independently ruled and owned factions that operate out of American government jurisdiction, so they don't have CCPL status and thus don't get government aid."

"Then why doesn't the government do something about these factions?"

"Too busy maintaining what they already have control over in what used to be known as the United States of America. The Feds want to concentrate on protecting what CCPL posts they already have, cleaning up more places with high levels of radiation, and making more CCPL posts. Once they can get a strong enough military going to reclaim what used to be the US, then they'll start cracking down on these independent factions."

Murakumo narrows her eyes. "And you're planning on doing exactly that, aren't you?"

Damon nods. "If I use you ship girls to accumulate a military strength powerful enough to take on these factions and destroy them, then the Feds will owe me one giant fucking favor that I can use to my advantage. I'll take control of America, then move on elsewhere...probably Europe, is what I'm thinking."

"Tch. So much ambition in one person," the ship girl remarks.

"Ambition?" Damon gazes at Murakumo. "This isn't ambition. This is revenge."

"Huh...? Revenge? Another cliched story device? On top of which, you just pulled that out of the blue, didn't you?"

The utility truck rolls into Tillmans Corner. "Confucius once said that living well is the greatest revenge," Damon cites. "You can say I modified that just a bit. You'll learn what I mean...eventually."

* * *

Another half-hour later, Damon and Murakumo arrive in the busy city landscape of downtown Mobile. Survivors of all nationalities and ages lounge about on the lazy, easy-going streets, socializing, laughing, and drinking.

"Seems like a really nice town," Murakumo murmurs, looking around from inside the truck as Damon carefully navigates the streets for a place to stay for the night. "Not all of these factions are like this, right?"

"Well, if you're just talking about the general atmosphere, I wouldn't know - I'm only slightly familiar with Mobile, and not really much of the other ones because the bosses of the other factions are generally dickwads - that, and I hear Mr. Harrison here is a nice guy, nicer than the other ones, at least. But yeah - you wouldn't think that people would be so laid-back and chill in a world where just 'bout everywhere else there's radiation still floatin' around. Kinda incredible, if you ask me. Then again, I grew up in more confusing and hectic environments, so I can't be one to judge. It's a bit different for me too."

"There's not a lot of other cars or ground vehicles like ours," Murakumo also notes, noticing that many of the pedestrians are looking at their utility truck with some curiosity.

"Yeah, cars and other vehicles are pretty rare for normal survivors to own, since maintaining vehicles is really expensive. But the main problem is fuel - fuel is top tier when it comes to trading goods and stuff. Some survivors used to risk their lives wandering into high-radiation level areas to loot gas stations and other places with a lot of fuel that was abandoned when the bombs fell and people started to get evacuated, it's that valuable now. At least, when I was growing up, it was that way. Now that the Feds are starting to stabilize fuel supplies and making sure that people aren't ripping other people off big time for gas, prices for fuel have generally gone down a bit, but it's still pretty valuable. Enough to trade for stuff with people who have cars, anyway."

Murakumo continues to gaze out of the window. She notices a common trait among the people that the truck passes by that she finds slightly unsettling.

"Hey, Admiral..." she calls quietly, "...why is almost everyone carrying around a gun?"

Sure enough, virtually every single adult on the streets is carrying some sort of gun. Pistols, civilian rifles, even military-grade firearms like submachine guns and marksman rifles - almost every single soul who looks over the age of eighteen appears to be visibly carrying a gun in plain sight.

"It's Mobile's most famous rule here," Damon says. "If you're eighteen or over, you're _required _to have a gun on you."

"Required?"

"You heard me right. Mobile's known as one of the safest places down in the south because of this rule."

Murakumo frowns deeply at Damon. "How does that make sense? Everyone is armed with a firearm, but it's safe?"

"Everyone here just wants to live their lives in peace without having to worry about worrying about how they're going to get their dinner for the day. So when he made his faction, Mr. Harrison wanted to make sure no dipshit assholes ruined his faction from the inside, so by making everyone carry a gun and know how to use a gun, he basically forced people who might become potential troublemakers think twice about fucking around in his territory. Absolutely brilliant, in my opinion. Can't rob a bank if the people goin' to the bank, the clerks at the bank, the security officers at the bank, and every single fucking person you see has a gun. Here's that hotel..."

Damon pulls into the slightly barren parking lot of the Battle House Renaissance Mobile Hotel and Spa. Before the war, this hotel was renowned across the country as a luxury vacation hotel, situated just across from the Tensaw River that runs through the city of Mobile. After the confusion of the war settled, Mr. Harrison ordered the Battle House to initially be converted into an emergency apartment complex, then changed it back to a hotel for passing travelers who needed a place to stay. After parking the truck near the entrance, Damon shuts off the engine and faces Murakumo.

"Murakumo, stay here and make sure no one comes along and starts screwing with the truck. The back is exposed, and there aren't any shutters that the truck has to close it off, so I need you to watch it for a minute while we get our keys."

"Wait, so what're we going to do with the truck once we get a room? Who's going to watch it? You're not expecting me to stay here the entire night while you get a nice room all to yourself, do you?"

"So you're looking forward to sharing a room with me? That's very sweet of you."

"W-Wha - " Murakumo blushes furiously. "D-Don't mix up my words, you bastard! That's not what I meant! ! !"

"I know, I was just teasing you," Damon says quickly as he exits the truck. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes, hopefully. There should be a separate underground garage beneath this parking lot where we can store the truck for the night and not have to worry about people stealing our shit."

Damon enters the main lobby of the hotel. Despite all the panic, horrors, and hardships of the war, the Battle House Hotel kept its luxury atmosphere intact through the years, and its calming atmosphere is very apparent to Damon as he walks up to the main desk. The hotel receptionist, a neatly dressed lady in a navy blue business coat and bunned hair, looks up at Damon and smiles. Damon notices that she is carrying an M-1849 Pocket Revolver in a leather holster on her right hip.

"Good evening, are you signing in for the night?" she asks with a slight Southern twang to her voice.

"Yes. I need a room for two, and a space in the underground garage."

"Okay. Please fill out this form here, and make sure to sign at the bottom. Do you prefer to use your Social Security number, or your CCPL identification number?"

"CCPL."

"Then please use that whenever they ask for an identification number. The logs we're using are still a bit outdated at the moment, so I apologize for that."

"Not at all." Damon takes the ballpoint pen that the receptionist hands him with the room application and quickly fills it out. As he hands the paper and pen back to the receptionist, Damon notices a few men in suits walking out to the lobby from his right. One of them wears a cowboy hat and a pair of sports shades.

"Excuse me," Damon asks the receptionist, "is that man in the cowboy hat and shades Mr. Harrison?"

"Yes, it is. He is here with some of his advisors regarding some financial decisions for the city. Here are your room keys, and this is the clicker for the garage. Please bring everything back by tomorrow morning at 11:00am at the latest."

"Thank you."

Damon nods his thanks and pockets his new items in his pocket. He approaches the man in the cowboy hat as his advisors discuss their night's plans with one another.

"Mr. Harrison?" Damon asks for attention, and the suited man turns to him.

"I'm your man," a heavy, deep-set voice that is oddly devoid of a southern accent responds to Damon, and Baxter Harrison offers his hand to Damon, who politely shakes. "What can I do for you, son?"

"Not much, sir. I just wanted to thank you for making a place down in the South like this a safe place for travelers like me to come and not have to worry about the rogues wandering around the place."

Mr. Harrison chuckles. "My pleasure, son. It's for people like you who wanna live the free life out in the wilderness that I built this city after 'em nukes fell on our poor souls. There's gotta be at least one decent man in charge somewhere, and seein' the other folks who like to be in charge around these parts, I had to step up, y'know?" Then, Mr. Harrison stops chuckling abruptly, keenly peering into Damon's eyes, its sickening yellow hue staring back at him.

"Pardon my askin', son, but...you're not by any chance one of those unfortunate souls from that God-awful Genesis Thesis Project, are you...?"

Damon's eyes widen in surprise. "...how did you know?"

Mr. Harrison sighs. "It's quite the long story, son, but I happen to know about that Project through associates of mine that live in the CCPL posts up north in Yankee territory."

"So does this mean that you know me personally, Mr Harrison?"

"No, I don't. I only heard about you and the others that were...pardon my rudeness...'created'. I don't know the details...but I wish I never came to know. I'm sorry, son, for what they did to ya."

Before Damon can reply, a young man in a cowboy vest and a clean pair of jeans and cowboy boots barges through the front doors.

"Boss, boss! We got trouble! A pack 'a irradiated dogs got through the fences from the street up north! They're 'bout ta run amok out in the parkin' lot!"

"Ah, shit...that'll be the fourth time this month..." Mr. Harrison grumbles as he pulls out a .44 Magnum Revolver and spins the cylinder. "Gentlemen, we'll have to do some skeet shootin' before dinner, if you don't mind. Camella, you don't mind helping us shoot some varmin this evenin', do ya?" The hotel receptionist that Damon had talked to just earlier shakes her head as she, too, stoops quickly under her desk and pulls out a Ruger No. 1 Varminter Hunting Rifle, loading the first bullet into the bolt as she and the men follow the man in the vest outside.

"I'm sorry to ask this of ya, son, but you don't mind helpin' us out a little, do ya? You got guns, ain'tcha?" Mr. Harrison asks Damon.

"More than enough to light up a couple of rabid dogs, that's for sure."

"I'll take that as a yes. Go gear up, son, these dogs've been a major pain the fuckin' ass the past month, and it's 'bout damn time we put 'em down for good."

Damon and Mr. Harrison exit the hotel lobby, and Damon goes to his truck and opens Murakumo's door.

"You done?" the ship girl asks.

"Yeah, but they've got a problem. A group of irradiated dogs are going to come through this parking lot real soon, and they need our help. Grab your AK and toss me my rifle, and make sure to take a few mags. It's time to show me that you haven't been slackin' off earlier today during that training I gave you."

Murakumo digs through the back seats and tosses Damon his weapon and ammo before hopping out of the truck herself with the AK-47 and a few spare magazines in her pockets.

"I'm a ship girl - it doesn't matter whether or not I paid attention to you earlier today. I was built to shoot things."

Damon smiles a small, quietly satisfied smile. "Then show me."

They can hear the barking of the dogs off in the distance chasing a white pickup truck whose paintjob is severely worn out and is flaking off entirely in some places. The truck, whose driver navigated the vehicle to intentionally grab the pack of dogs' attention, roars into the parking lot from the north and zips through the parking lot as Mr. Harrison and his associates watch the dogs approach.

"So who's going to shoot first?" Mr. Harrison chuckles, and the suited men chuckle with him, because they are only armed with pistols.

Murakumo's AK-47 rings out in response, and the air cracks with the gunshot of a 7.62x39mm cartridge.


	5. What's Worth Remembering

The first of roughly eleven or so irradiated dogs chasing after the pickup truck, struck by Murakumo's bullet directly in the head, lets out a pitiful yelp in response to the pain of the fatal attack, and its knees buckle inward and cause the limp body to tumble messily across the parking lot. Murakumo sustains her semi-automatic fire, her AK-47 spitting out more 7.62x39mm cartridges downrange. Some of the bullets are fatal, and more of them score hits on various limbs and the body, and the others begin to open fire as well. A half a minute of revolver and rifle fire produces eleven dead bodies of irradiated dogs, a bloodied parking lot, and a small pool of empty cartridges rolling across the parking lot across from the dogs as Murakumo lowers her nearly empty assault rifle.

"Is that it?" she asks.

"You don't see anything else moving out there, do you?" Damon replies curtly.

Murakumo raises her gun and aims down sights for half a second before pulling the trigger one last time. About one hundred and fifty meters away, one of the dogs from the pack that became frightened by the loud sounds of gunfire and ran away tumbles over from a shot to the head.

"Now there isn't."

As the ship girl ejects the empty magazine and puts it in her pocket, Mr. Harrison laughs a big, hearty old man's laugh.

"Damn! Never mind them guns you've got, that aim's enough to put Annie to shame!" he chuckles as he approaches Damon and Murakumo while inserting new rounds into his .44 Magnum. "Normally we'd spend anywhere from ten minutes to thirty flushin' those lil' bastards out. Worst case scenario, we'd have a couple folks bitten, and it'd be a pain for our doctors to have to treat them for bacterial infections. We owe you one, son." He peers over at Murakumo, who clicks another full magazine into the AK-47's magazine receiver but does not lock the charging handle and flips the safety lever up. "And who may this be?"

"Her name's Murakumo. She's kept me company during my travels for a bit," Damon says.

"Oh! So she's your girl? She's mighty pretty; you're a lucky boy, I'll tell ya."

Murakumo, hearing this, nearly explodes. "I-I'm not his 'girl'! He just ac - "

"She's a friend I've known for some time," Damon interrupts her firmly. "We don't have that kind of relationship."

"Oh...I apologize, there I go assuming stuff again," Mr. Harrison chuckles again, this time with a hint of awkwardness. "It's a bad habit of mine, you see? So a platonic friendship? I can respect that. Not too often I see a pair like you."

Then, Mr. Harrison stops chuckling. "Mura...kumo...? And those things above your head there, miss...you can't be...?"

Damon narrows his eyes. "...Mr. Harrison, since we've helped you out here and you said you owed us a favor, I'd like to use that favor. Can I can talk with you in private?"

Mr. Harrison's eyes widen in surprise. "Why, I don't mind. Just let me handle my friends here. Meet me in my office in about twenty minutes, it's just to the right when you enter the hotel lobby."

"Thanks." Damon turns to Murakumo. "We're done here. Let's get the truck in the garage and move the stuff we want to bring with us to our room." He beckons for Murakumo to follow him back into the truck.

"But why do you want to talk to that guy in private?" Murakumo asks as she sets her assault rifle in the back behind her seat before climbing in her usual seat. "And it seemed like he had an idea about what I am..."

"Which worries me," Damon narrows his eyes as he pulls the truck away from its parking lot space into the garage that leads underneath the lot. "Why does he aware of your existence? I need to know."

Murakumo looks at Damon worriedly. "You're not planning to kill him, are you? He seemed like a nice person."

"No, I'm not, don't worry. Even if I wanted to assassinate him, the repercussions of killing him would be too annoying to have to deal with. I'd basically turn the entire South against me, and I've got my hands full planning to make enemies out of every other faction down South in a month or two's time anyway."

The heavily reinforced steel gate that bars entry into the underground garage slowly rises to admit the utility truck, which rolls down a half spiral and joins many other cars and trucks underneath the parking lot belonging to the patrons of the hotel. An armed guard with an AR-15 looks up at the truck and nods as Damon rolls down his window and shows him the garage clicker.

"What should we take to our room?" Murakumo asks once the truck is properly parked and Damon shuts off the engine.

"Anything you wanna carry back, I guess. I'm just taking my backpack and my guns. The rest can stay here since the guards'll make sure no one touches any of the cars down here...is what I'm hoping, anyway."

"That last part you just said doesn't seem too convincing."

"Well...I guess sometimes you just gotta cross your fingers and put your trust into the competence of other people."

"You make that sound like it's difficult to do."

"Personally, I find it really hard to do out of habit. Maybe you find it easy to pull off."

Damon locks the doors of the truck and walks with Murakumo to the elevators to directly access the hotel.

"By the way, Murakumo, I'm going to have to ask you to leave me alone while I talk to Mr. Harrison."

"Huh? Why?"

"There's a few things that I want to discuss just between the two of us. It's nothing against you."

"Is that an order?"

"I'm afraid it is. Sorry if it rubs you the wrong way."

"Well..." Murakumo grumbles as they walk into the elevator and watch the doors slide shut. "Fine. If you say so..."

"Don't worry, we'll go eat dinner together in town or something, so you won't be lonely for too long."

Murakumo punches Damon in his side. "Who said anything about getting l-lonely, you bastard! ! ! !"

Damon rubs where Murakumo punched him. "Hey now...why are you assaulting your own admiral?"

"Because my admiral's harassing me!"

"How so?"

"Verbally!"

"That's not harassment, that's called not being able to take a joke."

Murakumo punches him again in the same spot just before the elevator dings and slides open its doors again, allowing them to the second floor.

"This way," Damon says, looking at the signs that point towards the direction of the room numbers that they display. He leads Murakumo to their room and opens the door, revealing a simply furnished room with a single queen-sized bed, a few paintings, a desk, two armchairs, a single bathroom, and a lamp. Murakumo, having only brought her AK-47 and the ammunition in her pockets, squeals at the sight of a real bed, tosses her weapon and ammo on the desk, and jumps face-first into the bed, snuggling up with the pillow happily. Damon sets his backpack next to the desk and deploys the bipod on his marksman rifle to stand it up on the desk.

"Murakumo, here," Damon calls as he tosses her one of the room cardkeys, which the ship girl catches with her left hand. "Use that to get in and out of our room."

"So do you just want me to stay here?"

"Do whatever. Hang out in town if you want."

"Okay~"

Murakumo returns to snuggling up with her captured pillow as Damon goes to the bathroom to wash his face quickly and comb his slightly messy hair.

"I'm off. Try not to cause trouble, 'k?" Damon calls as he opens the door to leave.

"What am I, your dog?"

"Hmm...close enough, I guess?"

Damon shuts the door quickly to avoid getting pelted by the pillow that Murakumo throws at him from across the room.

"Tch...he always teases me every chance he gets..." Murakumo spits with a reddened face. "Honestly..."

She flops back down onto the clean sheets of the bed, silent for a moment. Then, she realizes something.

"...wait...only one bed..._what the fuck, I have to sleep with him in the **same damn bed**? ! ? !"_

* * *

Damon knocks on the office door of Baxter Harrison, and his voice calls from within.

"Come in."

Letting himself in and closing the door behind him, Damon seats himself before Mr. Harrison's desk.

"Alright, son," Mr. Harrison asks, himself seated in a plush armchair, "what can I do for you?"

"Tell me how much you know about the F.L.E.E.T. Project, and how you came to know about it exactly. The project was supposed to be top secret and known to nobody outside of the developers of the project and those employed within the field."

Mr. Harrison sighs. "Like I said, I knew about it through associates of mine. One of them was a fellow by the name of Ken Simpson, who used to live in Mobile as one of the top local electrical engineers, and he informed me back in '01 that he had to leave to work on some new military project. At the time, I was deeply interested in his work at the time, so I followed it closely and pressed him for details whenever possible. After about six years of constant nagging, he made me promise him that I wouldn't spread information to anyone else. He then explained everything to me in a manner in such a pathetic way that I felt sorry for even asking that whole time...how the original plan was scrapped and they now planned to experiment on human bodies - or clones, more specifically - by bringin' in them scientists from Ukraine or some damned backwater Euro country out yonder. He hated the fact that he needed to learn how to program human bodies. He was a soft kid, yeah...I guess I was never too surprised when I realized how much of a broken man his work had made him after those years, since he couldn't even stomach the sight of his own blood whenever he had a nosebleed."

"What else do you know?"

"Well...I'm basically aware of the existence of the F.L.E.E.T. project and how they got around pullin' it off...like when the Navy found out and kicked the development team over to Japan, I know that much. Simpson also managed to give me a few details of their first few products, which I recognized when I saw your girl's little floaty ear thingies. But that was one of the last things he told me, 'cause right afterwards, the world got nuked."

"So you don't know how many ship girls there are or anything like that."

"I'm afraid not, son," Mr. Harrison sighs, taking out a pipe from his desk drawer and lighting it. "You don't mind if I smoke, do you?"

"Not at all."

"Thank yee kindly." Mr. Harrison takes a big drag on his pipe, enjoying the rich tobacco. "It's a luxury for me these days to be able to smoke in my own office. I used to do it all the time before the war broke out...it's one of my favorite things to do. But I suppose in a world like this, the simple luxuries all have to die out some day..."

Damon watches the boss blow some casual smoke rings into the air.

"But another thing I do know is that they never got a chance to activate 'em properly...them...'ship girls' as Ken called 'em. And yet, here you are, a young 'un sittin' in front of me, with a girl with 'em weird ear thingies over her head, listenin' to your commands. Where'd you find her, anyway?"

"Back in Texas, that's where we came from. I was tipped off that might find something good there, and I chanced upon her."

"Hmmm..." Mr. Harrison rolls his cigar around in his lips. "Tipped off...huh?"

"I heard rumors about the F.L.E.E.T. program from other survivors in the CCPL posts that I grew up in. Some sort of...urban legend, I guess you could say."

"But why would a top-secret military endeavor somehow become something of urban legend? That's what I don't get..."

"Me neither, but it's what I heard from people I used to work with. I interested me, so I decided to make good on it."

"By yourself, no less...well, given what happened to you, I'm not surprised."

Damon inches forward in his chair. "Also, if you don't mind, tell me how you know about the Genesis Thesis Project."

Mr. Harrison blows another casual smoke ring and gazes at Damon right into his eyes.

"My grandson. He was part of it as well...and, like the rest except you, died."

"I'm sorry to hear that. What was his name?"

"Eric. How old are you, son?"

"Seventeen."

"Then he'd've been the same age. You two could've been pals, but that _fucking_ project..."

The Boss nearly chomps his cigar in half in anger.

"That's how I fucking know, son. My daughter's family, who were livin' in Norcal at the time the world got nuked, got evacuated to one of the CCPL posts that contained one of the labs that they used for the G.T. project. She was pregnant, too, so they asked her if she wanted to participate in a research experiment that involved the baby. I don't know what made her accept it - maybe the returns she'd get, like financial rewards or something - but what I do know is that she, along with Eric, didn't survive that experiment. My son-in-law would come down to Mobile about a year later and tell me all about it."

Mr. Harrison pulls out his .44 Magnum again so that Damon can see it in its full glory.

"I promised myself that I'd find the bastards who made that G.T. project a reality. I'm going to find them, and I'm going to make sure I paint my office's walls with what's in their fucking skulls."

"Sounds good."

Putting his revolver away, Mr. Harrison taps his cigar over the ashtray on his desk. "Tell me, son. Do you remember the scientists that ran that project?"

Damon chuckles darkly. "How could I forget? I know all of them that were stationed in my CCPL post. They were like family for the first three or four years of my life. Except the kind of family you'd want to kill."

"Promise me that you'll kill 'em lot for me in case I don't make it that far, eh?"

"I can't promise you anything, sir, but I'll damn well try."

Mr. Harrison laughs boomingly. "I'll take it, sonny! That's a better answer than I expected!" Mr. Harrison stoops a bit to reach the lowest drawer of his desk, and Damon hears the drawer open and some clunking of boxes. Finally, the old man shuts the drawer and places a simple silver-lined white box on his desk and pushes it towards Damon.

"What's this, sir?" Damon asks, looking at the box curiously.

"This, son," Mr. Harrison begins, "was given to me on my fortieth birthday. That was twenty years ago...and I've never opened it for a whole plethora 'a reasons. I've always kept it, but it's never seen the light 'a day, and whenever I'm reminded of it, I get kinda sad inside, knowin' that it's never been able to do what it's meant to do. You, son...I have a feelin' you'll make this baby proud. Go ahead 'n open it."

Damon unlocks the latches on the side of the box and lifts the cover. Inside the box lies a single handgun: the I.M.I. Desert Eagle. Its slide has been painted a sleek navy blue, and the body is chromed to perfection with the outline of a bald eagle to give a perfect and sharp, crisp contrast to the human eye. The grip is a matted black, and underneath the slide on both sides of the handgun are written the words, _"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"_.

"A downright beauty, ain't she?" Mr. Harrison sighs, melancholy at the fact that he never gave himself a chance to use the weapon that is now Damon's. "For some reason, it's hard to part with something that I've always kept and never used. But it's for the best for the gun. It sounds wrong, but guns are meant to be used to shoot shit. It can only do so much lookin' like trophies 'n collectin' dust, and if that's what you keep guns for, as mere trophies and eye candy, then I feel mighty sorry for both of you. The folks who gave me that gun, they nicknamed it 'the Handcannon'."

Damon picks up the Desert Eagle. Having been accustomed to his trusted Glock 37, the big, hulking grip of the fifty caliber pistol sits awkwardly in his hand.

"It feels a bit odd at first 'cause it's such a big pistol, and it kicks like a mule if you're not ready for it - or so I've heard. But shoot it a couple times, and supposedly you can tame that big 'un in no time. Son, that Handcannon better taste the blood of those fucks who murdered my daughter 'n grandson. It's counting on you...as am I."

Damon places the Desert Eagle back in its case and shuts the lid. "I'll do my best, sir."

Mr. Harrison beams fiercely at Damon.

"Damn straight you will."

Damon closes the lid, and Mr. Harrison leans back in his chair.

"So allow me to ask you this, son. What do you plan on doin' with that ship girl, exactly?"

"I'm an ambitious guy, Mr. Harrison. I have plans...but I'm afraid I have to be unwilling to reveal them so soon."

Mr. Harrison laughs again. "I see, I see! A secretive hero, using an unknown technology to save the world! No, jokes aside, I understand. You are the one who found her, after all, so who am I to ask what you will and won't do with her."

The Boss stabs his cigar at Damon. "One final word, son: head to the U.S.S. _Alabama_ that's docked nearby and check it out. You might find somethin' useful for that ship girl of yours. That ship's been sittin' out there docked since '64 when they turned it into a museum ship, and the hilarious thing is, those guns that she has? They all still work, 'cause the museum employees maintained them throughout the years. You might get lucky...hell, there's a reason why they called her Lucky A."

* * *

Murakumo hears the door click open and looks up from the bed, seeing Damon walk in and shut the door behind him.

"That was fast...you weren't even gone for forty minutes. Did you not have a lot to talk about or something?" she asks as Damon carries the box into the room. "By the way, what's with the box?"

"Yeah, I just asked him a few questions about stuff. And he gave me this, but I think I'm going to give this to you."

Murakumo sits up on the edge of the bed as Damon walks over and sits next to her on the bed with the box.

"What is it?"

Damon opens it for her to see, and her eyes widen in surprise at its contents.

"Mr. Harrison gave me this Desert Eagle. He said he never really got a chance to use it, and he passed it off to me since he knew I'd have more of a use for it than he did."

Murakumo, deeply intrigued and captivated by the beautifully forged Handcannon, lifts it up gingerly and holds in her hands as if she is touching some kind of relic.

"But the problem is, I'm already used to my Glock, so I don't really have a use for this either. Thus, I want you to use this."

"Me? But...I don't even know how to use this gun. It's a pistol, right? It's massive for a pistol...compared to your Glock, anyway..."

"But it's good to have a sidearm. You don't have one at the moment, so use this one. For a ship girl like you, this's probably more in tune with what you'd normally use as part of your regular ship armaments."

Murakumo holds up her new Desert Eagle in the lamplight, which causes the weapon's fine chrome polish to shine beautifully, despite the incandescent lighting. Damon stands up again.

"Where are you going this time?" Murakumo asks, lowering her pistol.

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Uh..."

Murakumo's stomach growls loudly, yelling to be fed.

"For all your boasts and pride of being a ship girl, I guess you still have a human body," Damon smirks lightly.

"Sh-Sh-Shut up! We haven't eaten since lunch, a-and that was, like, seven hours ago! ! !" Murakumo shrieks, slapping him on the back with another pillow from the bed.

"Well...for the time being, stop hitting me with the pillow and put it back. Let's go eat, and we'll look around for things to shop. For one, you need a pair of pajamas."

Murakumo looks down at her clothes. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"Nothing, but don't you think it's uncomfortable sleeping in your daily clothes?"

"But that's what we've been doing for the last day or two."

"That's because we were sleeping in a damn truck. Sleeping in a nice bed like this is kinda different...but then again, you wouldn't know."

Murakumo pouts. "Heeeyyy, what's that supposed to mean?"

"In any case, we can talk while we're outside. C'mon...make sure to keep that Deagle on you in case shit happens."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Murakumo cannot help but gape in awe at her giant plate that holds wood-fired slabs of hickory ham, fried chicken, sweet potatoes, cornbread, and biscuits dripping with rich honey. The two of them are sitting inside a crowded family restaurant, where many important-looking people in business suits and semi-casual attire sit around and drink and socialize.

"I paid good money to eat real food like this, so if you can't finish it, give it to me so I can," Damon says, already tearing his full rack of barbeque baby back ribs with Mexican corn and peas in half with his bare hands.

"H-H-How much...how much did this cost...?!"

Damon stops himself from chomping into one of his ribs.

"For these two dishes...over a hundred and twenty?"

"_What th__e fuck?!"_

The young man glares at his ship girl. "Hey, you know, if you really insist, I do not mind sittin' on the edge of the street eating some refried beans out of a can," he says with a caustic tone. "You know how much that costs? Less than a buck. I want to make sure that when I have the chance, I stuff myself with good shit before I keep poisoning myself with even more canned shit. If you have a problem with that, we can eat refried beans all fucking day. And besides..."

Damon rips out a chunk of meat and continues after savoring the taste.

"...this right here is one of the reasons why I want to fight to rebuild the world that everyone used to live in before the bombs dropped. So that everyone has a chance to taste and enjoy good food like this and not have to pay one fucking hundred bucks for it. Eat up, and you'll see what I mean."

Murakumo, although her mouth is salivating uncontrollably at the irresistible aromas of her food, continues to stare at it. "Where do I even start..."

"Start with the meat. If you start with the biscuits, that's carbs you're eating first, and they'll fill you up more quickly," Damon suggests, tearing through his own food almost as if in a hurry. "That's what I've found, anyway."

"And uh...do I just...what, eat with my hands?"

"There's a fork right there if you want it." Damon points to Murakumo's right, where a steel fork sits on top of a napkin.

Murakumo eventually decides against the fork and picks up a large piece of fried chicken, biting into it. Immediately, the sweet juices of the chicken skin seep into her tongue and teeth, and as soon as Murakumo's taste buds register the sensation of fried chicken into her main memory core, she immediately begins eating at a rate that almost matches Damon's.

"Hey, see? Told ya this is good stuff," Damon nods, taking a swig of ice-cold water from a beer mug.

Murakumo swallows another mouthful of chicken. "I suppose if this is what you're trying to take over the world for, I guess I can understand," she says quickly before ripping another chunk out of her chicken.

"What, do you see me as someone who would destroy the world over a single piece of fried chicken?"

Murakumo nods emphatically with the chicken still in her mouth.

"Oh God...my image that I never cared about is starting to crumble apart..." Damon snorts sarcastically as he returns to consuming his baby back ribs.

Another fifteen minutes pass, and both of their plates sit empty with only bones stripped of all traces of meat and a few stray peas and drips of honey.

"I don't think anything else can compare to what I just ate," Murakumo sighs with pleasure, closing her eyes with the satisfaction of a full stomach. "That was great."

"You're not even going to say thank you for what I just bought you?" Damon says as a waitress brings him the check.

Murakumo glares at Damon. "What if I don't? What're you gonna do, huh?"

"Nothing, actually. I'm the kind of person who doesn't know how to say his thanks very well either," he replies, putting the cash on the little check tray and handing it back to the waitress. "But you bring up something important."

"Oh? What's that?"

"There's a first for everything, Murakumo. Tonight was your first night of eating a real dinner, food everyone here would be eating at a family dinner night together about twenty years ago. And the sad thing is, you can't experience that first again. The most you can do to replicate it again is to fight for the right to experience the sensation again. And in a way, you can say that's what I'm doing."

Murakumo sits up in her chair and frowns. "Your point?"

"I want you to remember what tonight was like. Remember it, and remember that this was what humans enjoyed before the nukes wiped everything out for a time. Shit like this wasn't even available at all until five or six years ago. For a time, food like this had no place in a post-apocalyptic world that came after World War III."

"...so why's that important?"

Damon sips some more water. "Maybe for you, it's hard to grasp. And to be honest, asking me why something like that is important is like asking me to explain why you got angry at me for killing that baby earlier. The best way I can put it is that for me, it's something I have to do. Maybe you have a different outlook on it, but that's you. I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm just having you do what I say. In any case, it's hard to explain, is my point."

Murakumo's mechanical ears blink calmly with low, green light.

"Let me put it this way. Food is one of the best ways to leave an impression on a human being, since it's an essential part of human life, or just life in general. You have to have food to live. It doesn't have to be great food - as long as you acquire the necessary nutrients to sustain your body, the kind of food shouldn't matter. But for us humans, it does. Nobody wants to be stuck eating shit out of a can for the rest of their lives. For a lot of people, food is what defines them - either as individuals or as their cultural identities. Obviously the importance of food differs from person to person, but it's always a core element of what it means to be human. You're not an exception either, Murakumo. You might have a mechanical interior and have a more durable body than normal humans, but in the end you still have human tendencies and characteristics. You've enjoyed this food as much as I have. Maybe one day in the future you'll think back to this night and remember the first time you've had food like this. That's what I'm trying to go for - to allow people the ability to think reminisce and replicate the good times of the past, a past that was denied to them all because a handful of retarded fuckers decided it was time to push a big red motherfucking button on the control panel."

Damon throws a few more dollars onto the table and stands up.

"C'mon, we have to go do a lil' bit of shopping before we go to sleep."

"Uh, why're you leaving some money on the table?"

Damon turns around to face Murakumo as she, too, stands to follow him out of the restaurant.

"It's called a tip...a tradition that American society used to hold before the war. I don't know why it exists, and honestly, I think it's a waste of money, but now that money's hard to come by for a lot of folks, and seeing how basically only a few people ever tip anymore, I think showin' a bit of gratitude that there are still people out there who're willing to serve you food like this is the least I can do."

They walk out onto the lively night streets of Mobile, Alabama.


	6. A Care Package?

Damon slowly opens his eyes, finding himself staring up at the ceiling of his hotel room. Having slept in his boxers and a fresh, clean t-shirt provided by the hotel at his request, he rubs his eyes and tries to sit up, but something holds him down. He looks to his right, and Murakumo, in the black pajamas and a long-sleeved nightshirt, is sleeping soundly next to him to his right. Her head is situated on top of his right shoulder so that the top of her diluted pale blue hair just barely tickles Damon's nose, and Murakumo's right arm is lying across his belly. Damon looks over to the right side of the bed, where Murakumo had gone to sleep the prior night, her back turned to him and lying on her side as closely as possible to the edge of the bed, away from Damon.

She probably acts a lot different while she's asleep, Damon thinks to himself. But he doesn't know how he'll get up from bed without waking Murakumo up. As he inhales, Damon can pick up the pleasant smell of Murakumo's hair, having been freshly washed and shampooed from the shower she had taken before going to bed. He takes a lock of Murakumo's hair with his unoccupied left hand and brings it to his nose, sniffing lightly.

"...reminds me of Mom..." he mutters quietly.

Damon doesn't know why Murakumo's hair reminds him of his late mother. He spends the next ten minutes or so continuing to lie in bed, trying to figure out why just the scent of the hair of a ship girl he is now in direct command of reminds him of his own mother. Maybe it's because his mother's hair had a similar scent to it, but how he would remember that after fifteen years, especially when the last time he could have possibly seen her, let alone get close enough to smell her hair, is a mystery to him. Her words would always stay with him, as he deemed them significant. But everything else...

Damon's mind wanders, as it tends to do when his mind is hazy when waking from an unconscious state. He recalls a past memory of himself talking with other boys his age at the CCPL Post in Chicago that he had lived in for a time when he was around late middle school age. One of the kids had talked about the concept of destiny - how he thought it was their "destiny" to live in a barren world where they were surrounded by radiation that trapped them in these ghetto-like compounds called CCPL's because of what their parents did before them. None of the boys really took him seriously, but Damon kept that notion to himself. Was that what destiny was? How could he tell for sure? He figured that he couldn't argue against it, if he were to hold the definition of the word "destiny" to be true. But at the same time, following that logic, because you couldn't prove or disprove destiny, he could either choose to abandon it and its meaning or accept it and forge a destiny for himself. The latter sounded much more appealing.

So then, by this reasoning, was it "destiny" that he would come to uncover the Fifth Fubuki Class Destroyer of the F.L.E.E.T. Project, Murakumo? Was his "destiny" only confined to finding this girl, or would it extend to the vision and goals that he had set for himself? You're not reminded of someone very important to you, like your mother or sibling, by someone totally random for no apparent reason - that kind of coincidence would be devastating enough to skew the world's sense of reason altogether. While Damon wasn't particularly religious or base his beliefs in a higher power, the fact that Murakumo apparently resembled his dead mother in the hair scent department didn't make much sense out of the whole "destiny" thing.

Damon was "destined" to meet this girl named Murakumo, who had been brought into existence, born a machine in a human's body.

That sounds very strange to Damon. He's not sure if he really likes it or not. It sounds corny, to begin with.

Damon looks down at Murakumo. Her face exhibits a peaceful, worry-free, ignorant facade that is painlessly unaware of the hardships that they would inevitably have to face once they leave the friendly faction of Mobile. It is very different from the glares, the indifference, or the embarrassed hisses that he would normally get out of her, depending on the situation. Neither gleeful nor frustrated, neither scowling nor crying. Only a mask of peace that, to Damon, who is unaccustomed to seeing her wear any other kind of facade, finds uncomfortably unsettling.

But the more Damon gazes at her sleeping face, the more he realizes what it means to him. This, too, was what he is fighting for. Just like how he had explained why he would fight for the food that he and Murakumo had eaten for dinner the prior night, this, too, was what he is trying to protect - a peaceful, worryless environment in which a couple, a family could enjoy their night without having to worry about the cold freezing them in their sleep, about bandits and other rogues who might find them while they are sleeping and kill them in their sleep and make off with their possessions, about the radiation warnings that, if they slept through, would tell of radiation waves that would sweep over them and smother them.

The innocence from sin.

Yeah, that's it.

The innocence from sin...

...that's what he was fighting for, among many other things.

Damon's mind continues to wander. Could he possibly fulfill his goals of creating a better world starting with only on ship girl who now slept in his arms in a set of pajamas that he had bought for her while their clothes were being laundered? Was this all just going to be one giant mistake, and they would become more of an obligation than a resource? What if they were going to turn against him? Were there even more out there? Would he manage to get them properly armed to begin with, as they were intended? So many problems and pitfalls, ready to open up at any potential opportunity to make him earn a one way trip straight to hell.

That's what he feared most: the very real possibility that he could die before accomplishing what he wants to accomplish. At the very least, he wants to be able to do just enough so that his plans would be able to set themselves into motion so that the world he envisions himself rebuilding can rebuild itself even after his death. Even though it would basically be a me-versus-world fight, Damon felt that he could do this. He wouldn't accept anything less than absolute success, no matter what it took. He had lost his mother, who meant the world - no, the whole goddamn universe - to him at an age too early to experience a loss like that. Knowing what that was like, every other loss would seem insignificant and petty by comparison, so long as it wasn't his own life.

Enough with the bullshit. Enough with the suffering. Enough with the chaos. Enough with the misery.

Anything to get the job done. Anything at all...

"Hnnn..."

Murakumo's sleepy whimpering drags Damon's mind back to reality out of his self-contemplation, and he watches as Murakumo wake up, lifting her heavy head off his shoulder and drowsily gaze at him.

"Fueehhh...? Da...mon...?" the ship girl mumbles, her main processing unit in her head still struggling to match itself with its human bodily functions after just having been activated after many years of inactivity.

"Mornin'," Damon says in a clear voice. "You seem awfully clingy today."

"Cling...y...?" Murakumo blinks a few times before realizing just how close she is to her Admiral. "...huh? Wa, wa - "

Murakumo immediately backs up away from him, almost jumping out of the covers and toppling backwards off the right side of the bed, crashing against the ground with a loud and painful thump. Damon can hear her whimper "Ow, ow, ow..." as she sits up, rubbing her head.

"Well, I guess that's one way to wake yourself up. I never thought of that before, thanks, Murakumo," Damon says unamusedly as he, too, sits up and throws the covers off himself.

"Y-Y-You - ! ! !" Murakumo shrieks, wagging her finger at Damon. "W-W-What'd you do to me last night?!"

Damon frowns at her. "Do to you? I bought you a pair of pajamas so you'd have something more comfortable to wear. What's with that?"

"Th-That's n-not what I mean, you big idiot! ! ! Why was I sleeping right next to y-you?!"

"You did that."

"N-NO I DIDN'T! ! ! !" Murakumo is positively screaming at Damon now, on top of being on the verge of tears in her excessive anger and embarrassment. "I WAS SLEEPING RIGHT HERE - " she slams her fist emphatically on her side of the bed - "LAST NIGHT WHEN I WENT TO SLEEP! WHY WOULD I ALL OF A SUDDEN JUST WAKE UP RIGHT NEXT TO YOU?! _THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE! ! ! !__"_

Damon sighs loudly. "First off, keep your voice down, because I really don't need someone screaming in my fucking ear first thing in the morning. Second off, you're basically a computer. See if you have any sensors that recorded the events of last night that might indicate what happened during the night. That way we'll know if it was you or me. It could've been me, for all we know."

Murakumo readjusts her mechanical ears so that they float properly above her head. "That's not going to prove anything. Besides, how would someone like _you _know if I even have any equipment like that built in alread - " But before she can finish her sentence, she stops talking. Damon watches with growing amusement as Murakumo's face turns from its usual color to a light red, then a bright red, then a dark red that covers her entire face.

"You seem to be shaking a bit, Murakumo," Damon says, unable to hide a smirk of his own while watching the emotional roller coaster that is apparent on his ship girl's face. "Are you cold? Maybe you need a bit of a hug from your Admiral?"

Murakumo, instigated by his teasing words, stands up suddenly and whips her right arm out to her side. On the center of her right palm opens a small panel that ejects a cube the size of a large icecube, and it expands itself almost instantly into a four-foot polearm, which she grabs and whacks Damon over the head with before running away into the bathroom, slamming the door shut, and locking it.

"...so it was her..." Damon mutters, rubbing the top of his head and grunting with pain. "And I guess that's what the polearm that she mentioned earlier looks like..."

Damon walks to the kitchen to fix up a small breakfast of cold hard-boiled eggs that he had bought in town after dinner the evening before, with a side of some hashbrowns to wait until Murakumo calms down.

"You okay now?" Damon calls as he hears the bathroom door open again some ten minutes later. "Breakfast's ready. It's not much, but it'll get us going."

Murakumo slumps in her chair at the table as Damon passes her a small plate with freshly cooked hashbrowns and a single heated hard-boiled egg.

"I can't believe I did that..." she mumbles pathetically as she lethargically directs the hashbrowns into her mouth with a wooden fork.

"For a second, I thought it might've been me," Damon said, also sitting at the table with his own breakfast. "I don't blame you for thinking I dragged you to my side of the bed."

Murakumo glares at him. "Just so you know, we're never sleeping in the same bed again. I don't care if I have to take the floor."

"Alright, I'll remember that. The bed is reserved for the Admiral at all times. Ship girls restricted. Got it." Damon nods as he forks hashbrowns into his mouth.

"I want to hit you."

"You already did."

"Then don't mind if I do it again."

"Then I'll be inclined to defend myself. Why tell me about it?"

Murakumo leans over the table to bop Damon on the head again, but he catches her arm this time and keeps a firm grip - so firm, in fact, that Murakumo's body sensors alert her that blood flow is being cut off to her left hand.

"L-Let go," she says. "I get it, I get it." Damon does so. "So? What're we doing today? Just traveling more again?"

"Unfortunately, yeah. But first, we have somewhere to visit."

"Visit?"

"Yeah. Old man Harrison gave me the slip about a special place I think you ought to go to before we move on to Charleston when I went to talk to him yesterday."

"So what is this place?"

Damon peels the shell off his hard boiled egg.

"The U.S.S. Alabama."

* * *

Two guardsmen on watch duty that morning, sitting at the foot of the bridge leading onto the main deck of the U.S.S. _Alabama_, look up from their newspapers and morning coffee to find Murakumo and Damon approaching them from the hotel. When they come close, one of the guards, holding an MP5-A4 submachine gun, stops them.

"You Damon Polchow?" he asks Damon, to which Damon nods. "Okay. Harrison told us to be expecting you sometime, but we'll only give you an hour to snoop around in there. We don't want other people to get the wrong idea when they see you on board that ship - they'll start thinkin' it's okay to start living in the ship like they always do, and we can't allow that. Sorry if this's inconvenient, but we're not trying to make our own jobs any harder."

Damon nods. "Sure, that's fine. C'mon, Murakumo."

They begin crossing the metal bridge over to the ship, but Murakumo simply stands and stares at the massive battleship before walking onto the bridge. Damon turns around at her.

"Like they said, we only got an hour, and I don't wanna waste it."

Murakumo shakes her head back to focus. "S-Sorry...it's just..."

"Find it hard to believe that you're modeled after ships like this?" Damon finishes for her. "So do I, but I'd much rather have you than this big-ass, hulking thing in a world like this. It's economical..."

They reach the main deck of the U.S.S. _Alabama_. Damon hops off the bridge onto the deck first, then Murakumo. But as soon as Murakumo sets her feet onto the deck, a pulse of very pale light blue energy momentarily and fleetingly beats from her feet onto the deck. Damon, catching this phenomenon out of the corner of his eye, swings immediately to her with his hand on his Glock 37.

"Murakumo!" he says in a tense voice. "What was that?"

Murakumo does not answer him right away. Instead, she blinks slowly, looking and gazing up and down the battleship as if she is trying to search for something.

"Murakumo, answer me, I need an answer here," Damon presses on.

"Hold on," she replies hesitantly. "I...it...the _Alabama_..."

"What about it? What's going on with the ship?"

"...it's...it's trying to...I think it's trying to talk to me..."

Damon finds his mouth slightly ajar in confusion. "...what? It's talking to you?"

Murakumo nods slowly.

"What the fuck? That's not possible. Battleships like this aren't sentient beings like you, even if your natures are similar," Damon mutters. "Then assuming you're not intentionally trying to scare the shit outta me, what's it saying to you right now?"

"...it...I don't...I don't know..." Murakumo slowly starts walking towards main deck. "I'm trying to decode it as best I can..."

"Decode it? What the fuck's going on..." Damon decides that it is best for Murakumo to take the lead and follows her closely with his Glock 37 out and ready, in case of an emergency. "Murakumo, can you at least carry your rifle in case anything happens?"

Murakumo slowly pulls her strapped AK-47 off her back and continues walking slowly across the side decks. They inch along like this until they are standing directly in the center of the main deck of the U.S.S. _Alabama_.

"...I...I don't understand what it's trying to say..." Murakumo whispers, almost in a terrified tone of voice. "All I know is that it told me to come here...I don't know what else..."

Damon looks around the main deck for anything suspicious, in case someone is trying to hack Murakumo electronically. Finding nothing, he faces his ship girl again.

"Murakumo, what are the signals that you're receiving like?"

Murakumo frowns urgently. "It's...they're all coming in like these weird dots and dashes...for some reason, I understand a few of them, but nothing else more than that..."

"Dots and dashes...?" Damon also furrows his eyebrows, scratching his head in thought. Then, it hits him.

"It's Morse code," he concludes. "Murakumo, switch your incoming signal receptors to Morse code. Do you have it?"

"Morse?" She closes her eyes, her processing units working hard to search her entire database for knowledge of Morse code. Damon notices that her mechanical ears floating above her head are glowing apple green as she processes his order.

"Found it," she says with a noticeable tone of relief. "Switching receptors to Morse code now."

"Shouldn't you ship girls already have multiple language interfaces already set up?" Damon sighs as Murakumo now deciphers the logs of Morse code that she was receiving from the _Alabama_. "I don't know if that's a problem on your end or your programmers..."

"Hey, don't look at me, I wasn't programmed to receive incoming transmissions in Morse!"

"Then what were you programmed to understand?"

"Natural language interfaces, what else? Do you still see me as a ship? This is a human body that I have, you know! I'm still limited by the physical restraints of the human brain!"

"Whatever, just tell me what this ship's been saying to you."

Murakumo quickly compiles a complete log of translated Morse code. "This is what it said: '_Greetings, Fifth Fubuki-Class Destroyer Murakumo, and welcome aboard the U.S.S. Alabama. Currently, I am decommissioned and am serving as a museum ship to the people of the state of Alabama, after which I was named. However, my caretakers have maintained my condition as an operable battleship, so all equipment that is present on me at the moment is operable and available. Please come to the main decks - you will find something of value there."  
_

Damon and Murakumo look at each other at the same time.

"...something of value?" Damon asks. "Like what?"

"How should I know?"

"Hmm...I wanna know how an authentic World War II-era battleship is somehow communicating with you, I'll ask questions later. Look around for this...valuable something, I guess."

They spend a few minutes searching for anything that might be of value. Murakumo walks around, staring intently at the pair of 16-inch Mark VI guns facing silently forward towards the field along the Polecat Bay. Every step that she takes, more of the same pale light blue energy pulses like a heartbeat from underneath her shoes. She reaches out to touch the rear of one of the Mark VI turrets, and as soon as her palm presses against the cold steel, the same energy etches itself onto the turret, and Murakumo suddenly begins receiving a hyper-influx of ballistics data.

"Admiral? Admiral!" she calls out loudly. "I...I think I found something!" Damon, hearing her, swiftly runs over to her right away to investigate.

"What'd you find? What'd you do?"

"I, uh, just put my hand on the turret here, and now I'm receiving all this ballistics data." Murakumo's eyes widen as she analyzes the data and begins to comprehend what they actually are. "Oh my God...Admiral, these...this data contains information on every single projectile that this turret had fired during active duty. It includes time and date of each trajectory fired, its ballistics information, its accuracy, its damage assessments...it's giving me everything."

"Save that information," Damon orders. "Even though you're not built to use the American Mark VI cannon, that information might still come in handy in case you need it. Speaking of which, did they pre-program you with ballistics charts at all, or no?"

Murakumo shakes her head.

"Then you'll definitely need that ballistics info. I don't know jack shit about artillery or how to fire them accurately, since my specialties are vehicle maintenance and small arms."

The ship girl's mechanical ears flash bright green, signaling that the information she had received is now saved.

"Do you think that's what this ship meant by 'something of value'?" Damon asks Murakumo.

"Maybe. This info, like you said, is particularly important to me, since I needed to engage in battle once to accumulate this kind of data. I'm already armed with ballistic theory, but obviously theory is less useful than recorded knowledge."

"How about this," Damon suggests. "Can you attempt to open communications with the _Alabama_?"

"Standby," Murakumo mutters, closing her eyes and opening her own communications channels. Damon notices that her mechanical ears change color to slowly blink a dull orange, and the upper halves of those ears actually extend upwards a few inches and begin rotating in place instead of being fixed in their positions. After a minute, the mechanical ears return to normal, and Murakumo shakes her head.

"Attempts to hail the _Alabama_ have failed," she reports. "It seems that diagnostics point to the _Alabama_'s lack of response to my calls as the main problem."

"Well, naturally. There shouldn't be anyone on board who would answer back," Damon points out. "I wanted to know if somehow this ship was also operating with a sentient model like you, which, clearly, it isn't."

"Then how did it know who I am?" Murakumo wonders aloud. "Didn't this very ship attack my comrade ships back in World War II? Why did it not receive me in a more hostile manner? Why is it trying to help me?"

Damon shrugs. "Dunno, but we can try figuring it out for ourselves. C'mon, let's head down to the control deck. Maybe we'll find an answer there. And keep your gun up - we don't know if something's inside the ship somewhere."

Some time later, Damon opens the door to the main control deck located in the superstructure of the battleship overlooking the front of the ship. He sweeps the room with his Glock, making sure that the coast is clear before allowing himself and his ship girl inside. Dark, silent buttons and control panels stare back at them as they explore the interior of the room.

"So what're we looking for in here?" Murakumo asks, looking around and taking in the grand view from the superstructure of the battleship.

"Why're you asking me? You're the one who found out," Damon smirks. "Try doing whatever worked for you last time. Maybe it'll do something."

Murakumo examines the control modules and the system panels as Damon peers out to the bay. Again, she puts her hands over them as she had done before, but this time, nothing happens.

"...well, that was anti-climatic..." she says in a low voice, a trace of disappointment audible in her tone. "I mean, you would think that a control room like this would hold something important as opposed to a random MARK VI gun emplacement out there."

"The fact that you even got anything of value is completely random, to be perfectly honest," Damon remarks. "Much less the fact that this ship itself was talking to you somehow...even if it was just a one-way transmission..."

Murakumo turns around to scan the room again for anything else that might seem intriguing. She notices a telephone-like receiver, used for troop communication throughout the ship and for telecommunications with other friendly ships. She walks to it and picks up the receiver as Damon looks on.

"What, are you going to make fun of me for doing this?" Murakumo glares at Damon, expecting some kind of witty or sarcastic remark out of him.

"No, actually, I was thinking of doing that myself, but I feel like it wouldn't really accomplish much..."

Murakumo puts it to her ear. Then, the receiver pulses the same hue of light pale blue, and Murakumo begins hearing a female voice, a gruff, stern female voice as though a tough war veteran in her late fifties speaking to her.

_"Go to the lower decks and find the captain's quarters. You'll find what you need there."_

"H-Hello? Excuse me, what do you mean, 'what we'll need'? Hello? Hello!" Murakumo tries to converse with the voice, but no response comes. Confounded, she hangs up the receiver.

"...what did the ship say?" Damon asks.

"Captain's quarters, lower decks. We can find what we're looking for there...whatever that means."

"Then let's burn some rubber and get down there."

They exit the control room and make their way down the superstructure of the battleship.

"She sounded like a really old woman," Murakumo murmurs as she watches her footsteps emit small pulses of the light pale blue energy.

"Who, the ship?"

"Yeah."

Damon pops a smirk in amusement. "Wouldn't surprise me. If she were to be a personification like you, a ship with a human body, she'd be in her seventies or eighties. I wonder if I can talk Mr. Harrison into allowing me to take the _Alabama _out for a sail?"

"But why would you want to do that?"

"Mr. Harrison told me that the ship's still in working order. Museum crews have been maintaining all the guns on this ship all the years that she's been sittin' here in this museum dock, for what reason we'll probably never know. But this ship can still fight, that's for sure."

"Then do you know how to operate a ship like this?"

"No, but don't worry, I'm a fast learner."

"That worries me. Like, a lot."

"Yeah, it should..."

They find the captain's quarters, but when Damon puts his hand on the door handle and tries to push it open, it refuses to budge.

"...seriously? It's locked?" Damon tries again, but nothing happens. "Now why...would this ship tell us to go to someplace that's locked...stand back, Murakumo, I'm gonna just kick the door down..."

Damon backs up against the narrow corridor of the lower deck and puts as much strength into his kick as possible, and when his kick lands, he can feel some of the hinges on the reinforced door groan with the pressure, but the door remains steadfast.

"...well, if that don't work, dunno really what I can do without like a welding tool or somethin'," he sighs, turning to Murakumo. "Any ideas?"

She walks up to the door and puts her own hand on the door handle. Again, the light pale blue energy pulses out from her hand and spreads throughout the door, and they both hear a very loud _click!_ and Murakumo is able to push the door open without any exertion at all. She turns around and snickers at her Admiral.

"Sucks to suck."

Damon frowns. "You hurt my feelings."

"Good, cry some more."

They enter the captain's room. A few pieces of fancy wooden furniture sit, although heavily faded due to the lack of polish and care. Immediately, Damon's keen eyes spot something suspicious: the painting in the room on the wall directly across from them is protruding from the wall as if something is behind it.

"Murakumo, the painting," he points out as he approaches it. "There's something behind it..."

At Damon's order, Murakumo helps him gently lift the painting off the wall and set it on the ground at their feet. Sure enough, there is a small and flat rectangular locker revealed to them with a code knob.

"You don't happen to know the code to this thing, do you?" Damon asks Murakumo, and she shakes her head.

"I didn't get any hint of numbers, so I can't help this time."

Damon puts his hand on the knob. "Then we'll just have to force our way in. Fuck locks." He tugs mightily on it a couple times before finally ripping the lock off by hand and opening the locker door to see what is inside.

Inside the locker are only two items: a large Rubik's cube and a simple pair of headphones with a flip-down microphone. Damon takes them out and nudges the locker door shut with his elbow to set the items on the desk.

"Er...what're those?" Murakumo asks, looking at the cube and headphones oddly, as she was expecting something more grandiose.

"I'm not sure..." Damon mutters. "I mean, these've got to be what we were 'looking for', but..." he scratches his head, "but I guess you could say this is a lot different than what I had in mind."

"I know, right? Like seriously, what's with that multi-colored cube..."

"It's called a Rubik's Cube. These were pretty popular before the war. It's like an intelligence game, you have to make it so that all the individual square colors all match up to one side."

"So like, one color per side?"

"Yeah. You're a computer - you can probably solve this in seconds."

Damon hands it to Murakumo, who holds it in her own hands for a few moments, analyzing it. Her processors make some quick calculations, and Murakumo soon starts twisting the cube's plates and solves it handily.

"Nice," Damon nods. "But I'm not too sure if that was supposed to do much..."

Murakumo frowns at it. "...it seems like an object of this size can fit in my storage compartment. I don't know what it'll do, though."

"You have a storage compartment?" Damon narrows his eyes at Murakumo in a bit of awe. "Where is it even at?"

"My - " Murakumo stops, and Damon notices her cheeks flushing. "M-My...just u-underneath my...my chest..."

"...with that kind of a tone, I thought it'd be someplace a more inappropriate."

"Shut your mouth, you freakin' pervert!"

"What the hell're you getting mad at me for, I didn't design you. Put it in and see what happens then..."

Her cheeks still bright red, Murakumo quickly lifts up her shirts and presses the Rubik's Cube against her belly just above her belly button. The skin gives way, and Damon watches the Cube disappear inside Murakumo's abdomen.

"...wonder how they made your skin all biomechanical like that," Damon observes.

"It says I'm made of Smartsteel," Murakumo murmurs as her sensors analyze the Rubik's Cube. "I don't know the specifics, but it's what all ship girls are made of."

"A metal that feels like human skin, huh...that makes me wonder exactly what kinna technologies we had before the war - "

Suddenly, a light pale blue sphere of energy expands from inside the ship girl's abdomen and engulfs Murakumo. Small, individual hexagonal panels parade from top to down and solidify, creating a transparent spherical shield around Murakumo.

"What's going on?" Damon says urgently, his hand again instinctively going to his sidearm. "Murakumo, assessment report!"

"H-Hold on - !" she stammers, looking around at the shield that is surrounding her. "Gathering data...compiling feedback..."

Damon slowly presses the back of his hand against the shield, and he backs off as soon as his skin touches the hexagons, an extremely cold sensation repelling his physical contact.

"It's freezing," he notes, rubbing his hand. "That's...that's like...dry ice cold, from the looks of things."

"Assessment completed," Murakumo reports.

"Show me whatcha got."

"An unknown compound within the Rubik's Cube is providing a special kind of energy-based resonance," she says, continuing to gaze at the shield that she is surrounded by. "It appears that the Rubik's Cube is simply a placeholder, or perhaps a container vessel, for this compound..."

She frowns, then gasps.

"No, wait...wait! This isn't...wait, I know this! This is...this is bauxite!"

Damon scratches his head. "What the hell...? This is some kind of futuristic technology right here. Why would something as ordinary as bauxite be able to do something like this?"

Murakumo puts her own hand on her shield. "...I don't know, don't look at me...it says right here that the compound readings confirm it to be bauxite that's providing this energy...or rather, it's the main source..." The shield then dissipates by breaking down into its individual hexagonal panels and evaporating like cold steam, then reappears at Murakumo's will.

"Looks like you can control it," Damon observes. "That's cool."

"It's weird..." Murakumo takes down her shield again and ejects the Rubik's Cube to hold it in her hand. "You're telling me this thing contains bauxite...? But...how..."

"Give it to me for a sec," Damon orders, and she puts it in his outstretched palm. Damon stares at it intently for a minute in silence, then speaks again.

"...I'm guessing it's some special compound that's made with bauxite," he concludes. "What the other ingredients are, I have no idea. But it would make sense that bauxite is the main compound, since you're getting reads that it's bauxite. Plus, not only that, you mentioned before that you ship girls consume bauxite to resist damage better. Maybe the properties of bauxite carry over somehow for you."

"But I don't understand how..."

"Me neither, but I'm down to ask questions later," Damon concludes. "As long as you know what it does, you know how to use it, and you can make sure it's not harmful to you, we'll find the answers along the way, or we'll find them when we have the time."

Murakumo points at the headset on the desk. "Then what about that?"

Damon picks it up. "...a mic, headphones...but no wires. What the hell is this supposed to do...?"

He puts it on and adjusts the mouthpiece properly.

"Dunno what this's all about," he remarks, but Murakumo jumps. "Huh? What's wrong?"

"Er, your voice..." Murakumo points to her human ears. "I just heard you right in my ear."

Damon stares at his ship girl.

"...interesting. Stay here for a second." Damon exits the door and closes the heavy door shut.

_"Do you hear me clearly?__"_

"Yeah. You can hear me, too, right?"

_"Yup, loud and clear. This...might be some kinda weird headset where I can communicate with you specifically. I really doubt I can use this to talk to anyone else unless it truly is wireless...I'd have to open it up and check the wires to see how this thing works."_

The door opens again, and Damon pokes his head in. "Let's go. We've got what we came for, I guess...unless we're missing something."

Murakumo follows him out of the captain's room and out to the upper decks. "Is there a way for you to manually mute that? I'm hearing you double," Murakumo says. Damon takes off the headset and finds a small mute button with a red mute symbol on the left headphone and presses it.

"Better?" Damon says, the mouthpiece in place, and Murakumo nods. "Great. Let's get outta here now...need to get to Charleston as quickly as we can."

"But who left these for us? Why are these things in the _Alabama _to begin with?" Murakumo muses.

"Hell if I know..." Damon shrugs. "I know exactly what my objectives are, and finding out who's helping us isn't an obligation right now."

They pass the guards and return to the hotel.


	7. Second Contact

"Here's the list of data that I've compiled on the Cube," Murakumo reports, dragging a light pale blue panel with scrolling text over in front of Damon, who is driving the utility truck about an hour and a half after departing from Mobile, Alabama. Damon frowns at the odd holographic panel that now floats in front of him.

"...what the hell kinda sorcery is this?" he asks, putting his own finger on the panel and, finding that he, too, can manipulate it physically, drags it up above his steering wheel so that he can read it easily while driving.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. It's a form of energy that's exhibited in this special bauxite mixture. Apparently, according to the source files, its referred to as 'navitasium'."

"Navitasium..." Damon murmurs, his eyes scanning the text on the panel thoughtfully. "...I'm no linguist, but doesn't that mean something like energy in Latin or something...?"

Murakumo cocks her head slightly in confusion. "I don't know what you're talking about, so..."

"Never mind me. Anyway, this Cube...is quite something..."

According to the compiled data given to him by Murakumo, Damon learns that the Rubik's Cube, which they refer to simply as the "Cube" for lack of a proper name, is capable of granting Murakumo special functions that Damon hardly believes is even physically possible.

"Just exactly what the fuck is this Cube?" Damon wonders out loud. "So you mean to tell me this thing allows you to deploy that...that Waterfall Shield or whatever, it lets you gain access to this navitasium stuff, and it allows you to fire projectiles using navitasium? Damn, if you weren't already overpowered, I really don't know what to call you now." Damon flicks the panel aside to Murakumo, who catches it and absorbs it back into her slender fingers.

"Hell if I know, dumbass. I'm just following what's written in the code...if it helps me, the better. Also, remember that the Cube seems to have a limited amount of navitasium. But it does excite me a bit...I wanna try using these and seeing what they can do."

"By limited amount of the navitasium crap, do you mean you have to recharge it, or what?"

"It appears that it can be replenished, given the parameters set forth by the storage unit within the Cube, but how and where we'll do that, I don't know."

"Then do you know how long you can use the Cube's energy?"

"An estimated total of one hour."

"That's not a long time at all..."

"An hour battery life? That's a lot, especially when I probably won't have a need to use it unless I have to. I understand the importance of energy conservation, you know."

Damon looks at Murakumo. "While that may seem like a lot, and it certainly is more than enough for fights that can be ended within a few minutes, you've never fought a long, drawn-out fight before. What if we're pinned down somewhere for more than an hour?"

Murakumo stares back at Damon. "We're not programmed to fight those kinds of battles. Like, we're familiar with the concept of battles of attrition, but we're built to end conflicts and destroy opponents as quickly as possible. Preferably with one shot."

Damon smirks. "If only all our fights would end like that. That'd be lovely, wouldn't it. Besides, naval battles take a long time sometimes. Surely they programmed that into you?"

"Yes, but our top priority is to complete an objective as efficiently as possible. It's best to avoid drawn-out conflicts whenever possible. They waste resources, anyway, which, clearly in this world, are hard to come by."

The driver nods. "You're damn straight 'bout that..."

A run-down highway sign, blackened by debris and dirt, passes by, reading "Welcome to the City of Montgomery".

"Montgomery?" Murakumo says. "Are we within city limits now or something?"

"Yeah. Be on your guard - we're still technically within Mobile's territorial limits, but rogues and bandits like to roam on the fringes. Keep your gun ready in case shit goes down."

Murakumo reaches to the back seat and pulls out her AK-47 and pulls back the charging handle. Damon pulls out a lemon cigarette with his teeth and offers the box to Murakumo.

"Want one?"

Remembering the fresh, tangy lemon taste, Murakumo takes one for herself and twists the end, igniting the tobacco-less mixture inside. The cabin of the truck soon fills with a fresh lemon scent, as if the cigarettes are taking up the responsibility of an air freshener.

"Murakumo."

"Yeah, what?"

"Have you ever thought about what it'll be like meeting other ship girls like you?'

"...what do you mean? What kinda random question is this now?"

Damon readjusts the cigarette in his mouth. "My mind likes to wander a lot, so I tend to think of a lot of questions like this. What I mean is, you haven't met any other ship girls so far. You've only really known me, given the circumstances. If we do find more ship girls who haven't been activated, I will override their chain of commands and control them as well. So naturally, I thought you might hold an opinion on that."

Murakumo holds her cigarette in her fingers to talk. "...I didn't really give it a thought, to be honest, until you mentioned it just now. I don't know...I don't know what to think about it just yet. I just hope they're girls I can get along with. I mean, it'd be bad for everyone if we didn't at least get along together, you know?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm kinda worried about too," Damon nods. "What if there's some tension between some of you for whatever reason...it's not something I want to deal with, given the worries that we have already. But I guess we'll only know for sure once we get like a posse going..."

The ship girl scoffs. "Yeah, I'm surprised you're actually_ assuming_ you'll get that far..."

"What, I didn't mention there's bound to be more ship girls in Charleston?"

"But you don't know that for sure!"

Damon's lips twist a bit. "Maybe not. But if not there, then where else?"

"Well, you could try visiting other naval centers. It can't just be the one at Charleston, can it? There's dozens of us ship girls; who knows where they've all been shipped to."

"That's definitely a possibility, but we're headed to Charleston."

"If you insist, then..."

The looming, abandoned skyscrapers of Montgomery, Alabama are well within the truck's view now as it rolls along Interstate 65. Unlike the skyscrapers that Damon saw in Houston, these are still standing and appear to be in somewhat better condition because the city had never suffered earthquakes or aftershocks of any kind from the nukes, but people had abandoned it anyway to live either under the protection of the Southern Factions or be airlifted to government CCPL posts.

"It was a ghost town the last time I asked around about this place," Damon reports. "There's a possibility that we could get through here without any trouble, but - "

As if on cue, Damon and Murakumo hear a muffled blast that materializes as an explosion of gray smoke that engulfs one of the higher floors of the one of the skyscrapers.

" - that shit could happen," Damon finishes, sighing exasperatedly. "Man, that shit always happens."

"What kind of shit?"

"The kind of shit where you say something optimistic, and then the world says 'fuck you' and throws you the worst possible scenario."

"Uh, I hate to break it to you, Admiral, but...that's just called really bad luck."

"I'm already aware of that..."

Murakumo looks straight ahead keenly, trying to see if there are any unrecognized signatures that she can detect. "So what's the plan? From that explosion, we can assume this place is occupied by belligerent forces, but we don't know much else."

"Here's the problem. Right now, due to the city infrastructure and condition of the roads, we have to get through Montgomery to proceed onwards to Charleston. We'll have to leave this truck in a safe place where we know where it is and it most likely won't get stolen or looted, and we go in and check out what's going on for ourselves. Montgomery wasn't a hotspot ever before...maybe something big happened here..."

As they draw closer to the heart of the city, Murakumo suddenly lifts her head up.

"I'm picking up different audio frequencies coming from the city," she reports. "Gunshots."

"So even Montgomery's become a shootout in the Wild Wild West, eh?" Damon mutters under his breath. "Fuck it. We'll throw some more lead in there 'n call it a party. How many hostiles, do you think?"

"Estimating from the frequency of audio frequencies, there are at least eleven different contacts."

"We'll assume there's a helluva lot more. Murakumo, your main objective is to assist me in clearing out this city of hostile contacts. Spare those who show no hostile intent or are not armed. You're authorized to engage anything that shows killing intent or retaliates to our presence."

"Orders received and confirmed, callsign Murakumo copies."

Damon pulls the truck off the highway and enters through the open gate of the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Plant of Alabama. Parking it inside one of its warehouses, Damon kills the engine.

"We're on foot from here, let's go."

They exit the truck, and Damon pulls down the truck bed cover to access the supplies stored in the back. He fills his Predator load-bearing vest with DMR magazines and tosses Murakumo her ammunition, one magazine at a time, which she fits into her pockets.

"Here, take this too," Damon hands her the MP5-K submachine gun with an extra magazine of 9x19mm Parabellum rounds. "You'll be my close-quarters guard for this run."

"What, I'll be watching your butt from people who get close?" she asks as Damon opens up one of the weapon crates.

"Exactly," he responds, lifting up the AMP DSR-50 sniper rifle. "It's time to put this thing to use."

* * *

Another thirty minutes later, Damon and Murakumo are lying prone on top of a white building to the south of the Montgomery Regional Airport, overlooking the runway.

"It's a warzone out there," Murakumo says, peering through the pair of high-powered binoculars that Damon has given her. Damon observes the carnage through his variable zoom scope: two rival bandit groups, as it appears, had met and clashed at the runway of the airport, presumably over supplies of some kind. That was the main cause for warfare between rogues and bandits like them: since their lawless ways of life had made them grow accustomed to stealing for a living, they couldn't turn to trading posts or places of strong security to get what they wanted, so they had to scavenge like vultures. And oftentimes, they weren't always so friendly towards their own kind.

"Can you check if there're more gunshot frequencies coming from deeper in the city?" Damon asks. "To be honest, I didn't expect them to be so close to where we parked our truck."

"I would, but the gunshots here are drowning out any other gunshot frequency," Murakumo shakes her head. "We'd have to make these guys stop shooting so that I can run more frequency scans." She turns to Damon, who turns the knob on his variable zoom scope. "But can you even hit them all the way from here? Even I can't target that far. Not with a weapon like this assault rifle, anyway."

Damon looks at Murakumo. "I'm not a sniper, but I'll try anyway," he grins devilishly.

She facepalms. "This can't end well."

Cycling the bolt action to load the first bullet, Damon smirks even harder.

"Whatever you're doing right never ends well."

The Ballistics Computer installed along the top of the DSR-50's variable zoom scope begins calculating the proper firing trajectories from Damon's and Murakumo's position to the airport runways where the fighting is taking place.

"Murakumo, I'm seeing a total of sixteen contacts out on the runways currently exchanging fire," Damon mutters as the Ballistics CPU confirms the sniper rifle as ready to fire. "Confirm."

"Sixteen hostiles...confirmed," Murakumo repeats. Her vision displays all sixteen enemies circled in red. "The group of hostiles to the left is winning out, so it looks like. It's now nine versus seven. Best if you attack the larger group so that you can even the playing field and create more havoc."

"Exactly what I was thinking. Spot me; firing in three, two, one..."

Damon pulls the trigger.

**_PA-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!_**

The sheer force of the DSR-50 sniper rifle blasts the dust on the roof of the white building that Damon and Murakumo are using as their sniper nest away from the two. The fifty caliber cartridge zips across the airspace between the runways and the white office building and directly hits one man with a civilian model assault rifle in the lower leg. His comrades, before realizing what is happening to them, watch his right leg get flung about twenty feet in front of them across the runway, leaving behind a thin trail of bright red blood along the way.

"Hit confirmed." Murakumo says. "Target is down and will bleed out in roughly three minutes."

_**PA-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!**_

Another bullet rips the air apart and scores a gruesome hit directly onto another bandit's chest. This time, an entire corpse is flung twenty feet across the runway.

"Kill confirmed. The bandits on the left are confused, they don't know what's hitting them. They are beginning to scatter for better cover."

_**PA-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!**_

Another bandit falls, headless. The corpse falls awkwardly, and the Uzi in her hand goes off wildly, and Damon watches amusedly as another one of the bandits keels over from multiple Uzi shots to the lower abdomen.

"Collateral damage, best damage," he chuckles, readjusting his aim for another shot.

"Kill confirmed. I guess I was wrong, Admiral, you're a better shot than I thought you were."

"I'm cheating, it's because I had the Ballistics computer on my scope calculate the zeroing for this thing. All I have to do is point and shoot and wait for the bullets to get there."

Murakumo gives Damon an evil look. "You fucking deceived me, liar."

"I didn't say I was good at sniping, did I? I wasn't under the impression that I was shooting to impress."

_**PA-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!**_

One of the bandits, who was trying to drag the legless bandit away to safety amidst suppressive fire being given by the other band of rogues, suddenly twirls in midair in a large bloody mist and crashes onto the ground, motionless with a gaping half-circle poking out of his left side.

"Kill confirmed. Vital signs extinguished. The other group of bandits are now taking advantage of the changes in battle conditions and pursuing the group that we have attacked and are now retreating."

"Switching target priority to the new group of bandits."

_**PA-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!**_

The last bullet in the magazine catches two people at once because of their clumped positions, and not one of the bandits chasing the other bandits down the runway escapes with no blood splattered onto them and their clothes. Murakumo watches one of them even get his eye poked out from a stray bone fragment of a left arm that Damon's bullet had ripped off.

"Multiple confirmed kills, nice collateral. It's their turn to be scared shitless now, now that they really know we aren't taking any prisoners."

"No prisoners...that has a nice ring to it," Damon remarks, inserting a fresh magazine into the mag receiver and locking the bolt.

"Bad news, Admiral."

"Oh?"

"I think one of them noticed where your bullets were coming from. Our position's compromised."

Damon observes the remaining bandits through his sniper scope, reading their movements and trying to decipher their intentions.

"Yeah. Even if they can't do anything against us - none of them had anything beyond AR-15 assault rifles - we need to scram. Let's move, Murakumo."

Damon quickly folds up the deployable bipod and straps the DSR-50 to his back with his MK-14 Rogue Chassis equipped in his arms. Murakumo hops right off the rooftop down to the ground, and Damon follows soon after.

"So what's the plan, Admiral?" Murakumo asks, following Damon out onto the parking lot. "Wait, I'm hearing a car engine coming from the runway! It's headed our direction!"

"Might be one of the groups of bandits we attacked coming to get us," he muses. "Why they would assault a sniper position so recklessly, I don't know, but they're lucky we decided to reposition. Murakumo, go to the parking lot entrance over there. Use that polearm of yours or whatever that thing's supposed to be and stop 'em right in their tracks. I'll hide behind some of these wrecked cars in the lot and finish off the stragglers."

Murakumo nods, and they get into position. Sure enough, in a few minutes, a car that sounds like a Jeep to Damon comes roaring around the corner and begins to enter the parking lot.

_"Do it," _Damon orders.

A six-foot polearm with two sets of stakes shaped like the metal heads of pickaxes at the end crashes down on the Jeep right down through the hood, pinning it down to the ground where Murakumo swung it. Because most of the bandits inside the Jeep didn't bother wearing their seat belts, almost all of them are thrown forward, and the driver and shotgun passenger slump forward in their seats, their heads and front windows bloody from the crash that has given them severe concussions. The three remaining men sitting in the back attempt to exit the car, but Murakumo pulls out her MP5-K and guns down the one closest to her. The bandit that successfully exits the crashed Jeep manages to squeeze a shot from his Anaconda Revolver at Murakumo, but to his utter astonishment, a panel made of ice-blue hexagons form to stop the bullet's trajectory from colliding with Murakumo, and the bullet quickly freezes and explodes into tiny icy fragments to fall harmlessly to the ground. But before the bandit himself can even utter a cry of surprise, his head jerks awkwardly before his body keels over to his left and crashes to the ground, dropping his weapon pitifully and soon forming a small pool of blood where his head lies.

_"Murakumo, secure that last bandit. Spare him...for now. I need to ask him a few questions."_

"Roger that." The ship girl holds the door open and pulls out the last bandit, who is still dazed from the crash and very frightened by this girl who is apparently immune to bullets. He screams for mercy as Damon approaches Murakumo, who pushes the young bandit, who looks only slightly younger than Damon, towards him. Damon pulls out his Glock 37 and points it at the bandit.

"N-No! P-Please, don't kill me, I-I-I'll tell you anything you need to know!" the boy cries out, basically bawling his eyes out by this point.

"Huh, so I don't even need to ask you. That's convenient...alright then. Why was there fighting at the airport? I thought Montgomery was a dead zone for the longest time, so why're there fighting now?"

"U-U-Um - ! ! !" The boy stammers, trying his best to talk but unable to do so because of the unbearable pressure of having his life on the line.

"Best you take your time and talk, kid," Damon advises. "You talk, you live. Now answer me."

"O-Okay, um...so...so...like...we...I'm part of a...a big bandit group," the young bandit tries to explain. "Just like - just like a - a random bunch 'a guys who got together 'cause they were tired 'a livin' borin' lives in those f-f-fuckin' CCPL p-posts. A-A-And then - jus' a couple hours ago - we ran inta some other bandits. Th-They were the ones who shot at us first, s-s-so we figured we'd give 'em a-a good ass-whoopin', and we were gonna, b-b-but you guys showed u-up!"

"So this isn't like a war or anything, just a small skirmish."

"Y-Yeah! A skirmish, yeah, that's it!"

"Is there any more of you out there?"

"Y-Yeah, but I don't know where th-they are! Honest! We lost r-radio contact with 'em just before we started takin' s-snaps!"

"What about those dudes who shot at you? Know anything about 'em?"

"N-N-No, I swear! They were jus' another buncha bandits like us! Nothin' between us, jus' coincidence, so we s-shot at each other!"

"So you're telling me there might be more fights like this deeper into the city."

"I-I guess so, yeah!"

Damon nods at Murakumo. "Let's get outta here. He's told us enough." Lowering his Glock, Damon turns and heads off across the parking lot to head east, then north to the city.

"Are you not going to do something about that boy?" Murakumo asks. "He looks like he could do something to us later."

"What's this? This is the same girl who told me I was a fuckin' murderer for killing a baby that would've died within days by himself anyway, right?"

"Shut up. This is different - he was out there shooting at the other bandits. He could defend himself, so I see him as a potential threa - "

Suddenly, Damon turns around and fires a single shot from his Glock. The .45 GAP round knocks a sporting rifle out of his hand that the boy was trying to get out of one of his comrades' hands in the ruined Jeep. The boy, again screaming out in fright, looks over at Damon and Murakumo, and he finds Damon smiling back at him with a smoking pistol in his hand. Screaming again, the boy runs away for good, disappearing around the corner of the white office building.

* * *

Another hour passes as Damon and Murakumo infiltrate deep into the heart of downtown Montgomery. Now, they are hiding in the third floor of what used to be a tavern, peering out through the broken windows down at the streets below.

"I'm counting at least twenty hostiles," Murakumo whispers, keeping her voice down so that the men and women below don't hear her. "Why are there so many of them? Didn't you say this city wasn't that bad?"

"I did, but that information was already old to begin with," Damon replies, his marksman rifle at the ready. "But I'd like to know why there's so many too. Something's going on here..."

"Orders?"

Damon looks down the window at the group of bandits down at street level.

"...help me find out what they're up to. Once we find out what they're trying to do, sabotage their objectives."

Murakumo nods. "Copy that."

They wait out in the ruined tavern for another half an hour or so. Then, Murakumo's ears flash a low-light blue.

"Movement. The people down there...they're on the move."

Damon peers out the window again to confirm. Indeed, one of the bandits, presumably the leader, is signaling to everyone to follow him.

"Murakumo, ID that guy there."

"The one making all those arm gestures?"

"Yup."

Murakumo gazes at the man, a black man with some bandages around his head and over his left eye, armed with a double-barreled shotgun, and wearing a leather jacket and old jeans. She memorizes his visual appearance and profiles him into her memory database.

"Tagged and profiled. Now what?"

"We follow them. They're on the move, let's roll and see where they're headed."

"How? They're at ground level, and we're still up on the third floor of this old building. By the time we get down there, we'll probably lose them. Why're we even following them anyway..."

"I wanna know why Montgomery's become the next Gettysburg. Usually gang or bandit fights start 'n end with small lil' fights like the one we saw down at the airport," Damon explains. "By the way, we're trackin' 'em by rooftop."

Murakumo gawks at him. "By..._rooftop?_"

"It gives us a height advantage. It's a fuckton easier shooting _down_ at people than _up_. If there's anything I can teach you about urban combat, Murakumo, it's that. We all live in a three-dimensional playing field, and whoever uses all three probably'll get out of a gunfight alive more times than not."

Damon and Murakumo reach the attic, and Damon punches open an old access panel to climb onto the rooftop before helping Murakumo up as well.

"We're at least forty meters off ground level. Are you sure we can still track them easily? Remember, I still don't have access to my GPS tracking script."

"You talk as if this's the first time I've ever done any stalking business."

"Yeah, that totally wasn't weird at all."

"And you say I'm the master of sarcasm."

Damon and Murakumo scale the varying heights of the rooftops of the buildings of downtown Montgomery, tracking the progression of the group of rogues down on the streets. Suddenly, when they hit an intersection, gunfire pops from three directions onto those bandits.

"Must be an ambush by those other bandit dudes," Damon says, peering over the edge to witness the battle. Several of the men and women from the first group have fallen already, but the ringleader and his remaining forces have taken cover behind old cars and vehicles and other urban environmental objects to return fire.

"I'm counting about a dozen more firing on that first group of people," Murakumo reports, quickly assessing the combat situation. "Don't you get the feeling that one group's trying to stop another from reaching something?"

"That's what I had in mind too. This isn't just a one-off skirmish, it's a goddamn war. One of these groups 'a bandits isn't goin' back home tonight...but that's how I want it. Easier for us to mop up..."

They wait for the gunfight to pass, but about eight minutes later, the volume of gunfire sharply increases from the north.

"Heads up, it looks like our first targets got some reinforcements," Murakumo reports again, profiling the group of another eight armed men attacking the ambushers from another street. "The ambushers are falling back, it's too much fire they're taking."

Soon, the gunfire dies down, and they can hear voices coming from the street as the two groups of bandits remaining converge.

"Can you listen in on their conversation down there? Seems like our priority target's talkin' a bit," Damon points his thumb down at the street, and Murakumo leans against the wall to detect audio frequencies. After remaining silent for a minute, the bandits, now as one big group, begin to move north from whence the reinforcements had arrived. Some of the bandits go to their fallen buddies and strip them of anything useful, like ammunition or clothing that hasn't been ruined, before moving on.

"Talk to me, Murakumo."

"They're talking about something they found further up north into the city. They just referred to as a cargo container, they didn't mention anything about what it contained. They're heading over there now."

"And now why would a buncha bundits be interested in one single cargo container?"

"Why're you asking me? I'm only the messenger."

"I'm aware of that. Let's move."

"Uh, where? There's no more rooftops to scale now, now that we're at an intersection."

Damon points at the telephone lines that connect the buildings to one another.

"You ever heard of tightrope walking?"

"Uh, no, what's that?"

"Good, then today's your lucky day."

Damon quickly stands up and runs straight across the thin telephone line over to the other section of rooftops to continue stalking their targets, and Murakumo simply stares after him.

_"See? Wasn't so bad. Just make sure you keep your balance nice 'n straight and don't look down." _Murakumo can see Damon flashing her a thumbs up, as if he is taunting her.

"You can't be serious," Murakumo utters.

_"Well, if you wanna waste time making your way all the way down to the street and then comin' back up, be my guest. I'll be followin' these guys in the meantime since we can't lose 'em," _Damon says as he disappears out of view.

"Tch...why bother running on a telephone line when I can just do this...?" Murakumo backs up and runs the full length of the rooftop to jump as far as she can. As she pushes off with her feet, the bottoms of her loafers pump light pale blue energy into the rooftop and propels her up into the air so that she clears the distance between the two rooftops easily and rolls cleanly to the standing stance. Brushing off the top of her AK-47, she spots Damon proceeding along the mountainous rooftops and follows after him.

* * *

They follow them to a run-down car repair center with a large garage. Damon watches from the rooftop of a corner drugstore just across the street as the leader of the bandit group and what appears to be his second-in-command approach the garage door. The second-in-command, a man roughly the same height and wearing his long hair in a small ponytail and goggles, crouches down and lifts up one of the doors to the garage so that they can enter. The black leader turns around to his men and women and barks at them.

"Guard this place 'til we come back out again!" Damon hears him yell. "Don't wanna hafta do no gunslingin' fer the rest 'a tonight, y'all hear?"

The garage door drops behind them with a loud slam, and the rest of the bandits begin to lounge about, tired from their little march through the city. Murakumo watches as some of them go to one of the three urals parked in front of the repair shop and cllimb into the back, emerging shortly after with what look to be fresh bottles of hard cider or beer.

"Real smart idea, drinkin' beer in a place like this," Murakumo hears Damon whisper sarcastically. "Buncha fuckin' idiots. I never did understand why people like to drink. All they're doing is drinking their problems away 'cause that's what alcohol does best."

"Are you done with your old man ramblings now?" Murakumo mutters. "What's the call now?"

"All bandits are cleared for contact - kill them all. But do not kill those two men that went inside the garage. You have them ID'd, right?"

Murakumo nods.

"Good. Spare them, but if they show signs of resistance, you can put one down. But we need at least one of them alive, both would be better if possible. If there's any more enemies inside the garage, they're cleared for contact as well. Once we open fire, kill all of them as fast as you can so that anyone inside the garage don't have a chance to escape."

Murakumo readies her assault rifle. "Solid copy."

"On my mark. When I shoot, let 'em have it."

Damon peers out to get one last good look at the bandits' positions down in front of the garage. Twenty-five men and women, all armed with varying weapons ranging from simple .22 pistols to high-capacity .12 gauge shotguns, are littered about the compound.

"Go."

Damon whips his MK-14 Rogue Chassis over the edge of the rooftop and opens fire, and Murakumo simultaneously follows suit. Their bullets immediately end the lives of six of the bandits before the rest scramble to cover and attempt to return fire. Damon and Murakumo duck back down to cover as bullets start flying their way, chipping off blocks and chunks of their cover steadily. Damon repositions himself further down the rooftop and pops back out to catch more of his enemies by surprise, killing one more and severely wounding two with direct hits through their guts and upper chest before being forced back to cover again.

"How many KIA?" Damon mutters into his mic. Despite the loud snaps of bullets whizzing by and the blasts of gun barrels, Murakumo can hear his voice in her ears very clearly, and vice versa.

"Ten KIA, with four more WIA," she reports, tossing aside a spent 7.62x39mm magazine and shoving another into her assault rifle.

"Good progress then, let's keep it up." Damon again pops up in a different area along the drugstore rooftop's edge, this time scoring three more quick kills with all headshots. Soon, as the surviving bandits realize that their numbers are dramatically thinning out, they begin running away. One of them runs up to the garage door and bangs wildly on it, screaming for someone to open it so that she can get inside. Damon simply lines up the red dot on his CRS-468 reflex sight and pulls the trigger, and the insides of her head splatter against the garage door as the decapitated body slides down and crumples onto the ground. Murakumo fires a few more cartridges at the last few bandits who are trying to escape around the repair shop building, knocking them down before they can reach sufficient cover.

"Hostiles eliminated. Objectives now updated - it's clear to move up, Admiral."

"I hear ya - !" Damon locks the charging handle on his marksman rifle after inserting a new DMR magazine and jumps off the drugstore rooftop, rolling to break his fall once he hits the asphalt. Murakumo, too, jumps off the rooftop to follow him to the garage door, and Damon shoves the headless body of the bandit away.

"Is there a way for you to see if there's anyone inside?" Damon asks Murakumo.

"Hold on, I'll check for audio scans." Murakumo puts her ear against the wall to listen for any sounds inside. "I'm detecting footstep frequencies coming from about five unique sources. At least five more hostiles in there, two of them most likely being our targets."

"I don't want to risk shooting our targets on accident. Can I ask you to use that shield of yours?"

"Of course. I wanna see how it holds up in personal combat, anyway."

"Good. Use that polearm of yours to make an entry; I'll follow up from behind. Got it?"

Murakumo nods. She holsters her AK-47 and expands her polearm.

"Just curious, do you, like, have a name for that thing?" Damon asks, pointing at her polearm.

"Er...not really, but it's supposed to be a representation of my ship mast."

"Is it okay with you if we call that thing the Mast, then?"

"...I guess. Breaching!"

Murakumo pulls back her Mast and swings it with a single left hand against the garage door that they saw their targets enter the garage shed through, and the door is hit with such force that Murakumo literally punches it off its hinges and splatters one of the bandits inside the garage who had been in the door's way against the far wall. The other bandits, their attention distracted by the exploding door, gasp in horror as they realize that blood is smeared all over the wall where the garage door collided with the wall. The ship girl then hops through to locate the rest of the enemies inside.

"Shoot her! Shoot her, fuckin' gawd-dammit!" the black ringleader screams, and they open fire with automatic rifles and shotguns. The bullets either ping off Murakumo's Waterfall Shield or explode into tiny icy fragments upon contact with the shield, and Murakumo proceeds to easily beat up the resisting bandits with her Mast. Once all the other bandits are eliminated, she faces the two remaining men, their targets, who are backing away from her, realizing that there is nothing they can do to her. They drop their weapons, and the second-in-command suddenly tries to run around Murakumo, pushing her aside as he makes a break for the garage door that is now doorless. Damon then walks in and socks him in the face, listening to his nose shatter into four different pieces and feeling the impact through his knuckles. As the man with the goggles lies on the floor, holding his nose and choking, Damon drags him back into the garage and rolls him next to the black man, who is being held by Murakumo at the gunpoint of her MP5-K submachine gun.

"Good work," Damon says, dusting his hands. "How'd it go?"

"Excellent. The shield works perfectly," Murakumo nods with satisfaction.

"...waddayou guys want?" the black ringleader mutters with hostility. "Hurry up 'n eitha kill me 'r lemme go. I'm a busy man, only death's gonna stop me from doin' what I want."

Damon smiles a small smile. "Then I think we can understand each other. I'd like for you to answer a few questions that I got, and I'm hoping your friend there can help out with that if he's able."

"...uh, okay?"

"First, what's going on in this town? I thought Montgomery wasn't known for gangfights. Is there a war goin' on here, or what?"

The black man with the leather jacket chuckles amusedly. "So I guess you ain't up-to-date with shit 'round these parts. It ain't jus' us, my dude. My crew 'n I've been rollin' across da South, livin' off da land. Originally, we stopped at Montgomery thinkin' we'd post up here 'n ambush the next party rollin' through da city. That was a few days ago. But soon as we got here, we be takin' all kinds'a bullets to the motherfuckin' face. We been fightin' ta flush 'em out. Our numbers got real thinned out 'cause 'a all 'em shootin's."

"Who are you fighting?"

"Dunno, my dude, jus' some otha random buncha bandits like us. Thought you was good down South. You ought'a know how it is down here."

"I'm aware, but I wasn't aware of the fighting here in this city specifically."

"I don't blame ya. But that's what's been goin' on, homie. All I can say."

"Mkay, then. Second, what're you keeping in this garage? What's going on in here?"

"Oh man..." the bandit chuckles and sighs. "I was hopin' y'all wouldn't ask that, but I guess there ain't nothin' much else now." He points towards the center of the garage. "See dat box there? See, when we first rolled in the hood here, dis garage was actually one 'a theirs. We took it over and been usin' it as a stronghold, y'all could say. That crate there? We got that from the local airport down a bit south from here. We moved it here yesterday, and me 'n Charlie here wanted ta open it up, see what it holds. I mean, muh'fucka, it's got 'do not open' all over da damn place. Why wouldn't a bandit like me wanna try 'n open it up?"

Damon keenly observes the box. It is a particularly large box, a coffin, almost.

"Murakumo, I'll keep an eye on this guy. Scan that box, and see if you can see what's in it," Damon orders. Murakumo turns and approaches the box as Damon draws his Glock 37 at points it at their captives.

"Uh, Admiral?" Damon hears her calling to him. "You...uh, you might wanna come see this..."

Damon approaches the black man and clonks him over the head with the butt of his Glock, knocking him out. Holstering his gun and hurrying over to Murakumo, he looks down at the big box again.

"What is it? What'd you find?"

"You won't believe this..." Murakumo stares with wide eyes at the box at their feet, "...but I'm getting a Smartsteel signature from inside this box."

"Smartsteel...?" Damon's eyes widen as well. "Oh shit...so there's another ship girl inside this box, too?"

Murakumo nods urgently. "It's gotta be. According to my databases, Smartsteel's only used to manufacture us ship girls. It's a highly secret technology that's never been used on anything else, or so that's what's programmed in my databases. So whenever I get a Smartsteel-positive ID, it's gotta be another ship girl like me."

Damon, without hesitation, grabs Murakumo's Mast and starting whacking away at the wooden box. After ripping off the front wooden panel, Damon and Murakumo peer inside to find a safebox that looks exactly like the one that Damon had found when he had first freed Murakumo.

"That's...the same kind of container...that I was in, right...?" Murakumo whispers.

"What else could it be..." Damon rips off the standing wooden panels and crouches down to lift the extremely heavy black safebox upright. "Gimme a hand with this, Murakumo..."

They lift it upright, and Damon again rips off the knob and disables the locking mechanism to open the safebox door. Inside the safebox, true to Murakumo's projections, is another ship girl.

Ninth Kagerou Class Destroyer, Amatsukaze. The image of a teenage girl either the same age as Murakumo or a year younger. Five foot seven or six, around there. A brown one-piece zippered short dress with a white collar, white linings along the ends of her sleeves and bottom of the dress, small beige scarf, and an ornament-sized tiny lifebuoy that acts as the dress's zipper. A few black straps holding up two metal rings that are clasped onto her upper thighs like rigging, going all the way up her neck and onto the top of her head and topped by a laughably tiny hat that looks like a miniature smokestack and is off-centered to the right of her head. Maroon thighhighs with white strips near the brim, and maroon high-heels with heels that literally look like rudders. Long, silvery-white hair going down past her shoulderblades and held up in twintails by two wind socks acting like hair tubes, the same color scheme as her thighhighs. A white glove on her right hand but not on her left hand. Like Murakumo before her, her eyes are closed, and she is not breathing.

"I don't know who this is," Damon mutters, "and much less how to activate her."

"Don't you have your nanoknife?"

"Yeah, but I like to save that for emergencies."

Murakumo hisses at him. "So stabbing me in the head was an emergency, huh?"

"To me it was, because my patience was running out back then."

"Bullshit."

Murakumo places her hand on top of Amatsukaze's head. "Hmm...okay, I see. Her name is Amatsukaze, a destroyer like me. She's a Ninth Kagerou Class, though. And...searching for activation protocol...there."

Murakumo pulls her hand away, and Amatsukaze's eyelids pop open, again revealing only white scleras and no pupils. And again, just like with Murakumo from before, her jaw begins to move, and a monotone, robotic voice begins to emit from her throat.

_"Operating system initializing..._

_Retrieving system files..._

_Activating main power core..._

_Assessing main body condition..._

_Assessing equipment condition..._

_All conditions met and satisfactory. Ninth Kagerou Class Destroyer, Amatsukaze. Service number unknown._

_System lock detected. Please speak your name, your reference number, and password to proceed."_

Damon scratches his head.

"Ken Simpson, reference number 17,468. Password, _ENIAC._"

_"Error. Unrecognized parameters. Please try again."_

Murakumo looks at Damon. "This is what you went through to activate me, huh?"

"Yeah, it's a complete deja vu for me over here." Now, he pulls out his nanoknife and flicks down the nanoblade. "We need to get out of here ASAP, so this counts as an emergency."

"Yeah, _right..._"

Damon slowly but firmly sinks the nanoblade through Amatsukaze's head into her brain. The flip-top panel again forms, displaying the percentage number again from 0 to 100%. Murakumo notices that unlike the time that she was hacked, the percentage is progressing much more slowly.

"Why's it going slower for her?" she asks. "Didn't it take, like, less than a minute for me?"

"It's because I have to bypass the security protocols," Damon explains. "I knew the information I had to speak to get past the whole name, reference number, and password. This time, I have to get past those first."

It takes Damon's hacking knife about six minutes to successfully bring down the security firewalls in Amatsukaze's system, and then, she blinks her eyes. Now, rich brown pupils fill the white empty scleras of her eyes, and she looks up at Damon and Murakumo as the fastenings of the safebox she is encased in release her.

"Amatsukaze," Damon says in a clear voice. "Welcome to the Fleet."

Then, they hear the sound of a gun snapping in place. Damon and Murakumo turn to the direction of the sound, but Charlie, the black ringleader's second-in-command, already has stood up and points his comrade's double-barreled shotgun at Damon.

"Whatever's in there - that shit's ours. Don't go thinkin' y'all can just waltz in 'n steal what's ours!" he roars, holding his profusely bleeding nose. "Die, motherfucker, die!"

The flash of the shotgun's right barrel blinds Damon before Murakumo can react.


	8. Divided We Fall

Amatsukaze stands in front of Damon. Her right gloved hand firmly grasps a single large .12 gauge shotgun slug just inches away from her face. Even from a foot or two away, Damon can feel intense heat emanating from the girl's glove. Amatsukaze tucks the slug into her palm, in plain view of Charlie, who is stunned and gawking at the girl with the silvery white hair, and closes her fist. Charlie, Damon, and Murakumo can all clearly hear the crunching and cracking of lead inside Amatsukaze's fist, and when she opens her gloved fist, only fine lead powder scatters from her palm.

"...what in God's name are _you?_" Charlie whispers, not knowing how else to react to a girl who just blocked a shotgun slug at nearly point-blank range with only her hand...and ground it to fine dust with only her fist.

"Ninth Kagerou Class Destroyer, Amatsukaze," Amatsukaze announces with a condescendingly proud tone, her voice pitched very slightly higher than Murakumo's. She raises her right hand, and the glove suddenly erupts into a red-hot glow that engulfs her entire glove down to her wrist. "Nice to - "

Charlie drops his weapon in terror, holding out his hands in front of him. "Wait, w-wait, you can't kill me, _you can't kill m - ! ! !_"

Amatsukaze moves so fast that Damon only sees an afterimage of Amatsukaze's stance before realizing she has punched Charlie in the chin and launched him flying across the garage, his burning body slapping messily against the wall and crumpling into the floor. The garage is filled with terrible screams of burning agony as Charlie's entire body, having been set on fire, roasts to a crisp, and the screams soon give way to weak choking and gasps, then to silence.

" - meet you."

Amatsukaze, after confirming that her enemy is dead, turns around and salutes Damon with the same hand that had set her victim on fire.

"Reporting for duty, Admiral."

Damon smiles and puts out his hand to his new ship girl. "Thanks for the save, Amatsukaze. Nice to meet you."

Amatsukaze takes his hand and they shake.

"We can't stay here long," Damon says, looking at both of his ship girls. "These bandits - their friends're bound to find out what happened to 'em, if there's more of 'em remaining in the city. We need to clear out the entire city so that we don't get ambushed as we drive through."

"But we don't know if there's any more around here," Murakumo says. "Just these guys that we took down here."

"May I have a status report?" Amatsukaze asks. "I'd like to know what's going on."

"Hmm..." Damon scratches his head. "Where to start..."

"Don't worry, Admiral, I can handle this," Murakumo interrupts and approaches Amatsukaze. "I'm going to send you some files for you to download. Can you accept my wireless?"

Amatsukaze nods. "Wireless torrenting established. Download is on standby."

"It's up."

After waiting a minute, Amatsukaze nods again. "Okay, I know what's going on. But Admiral, do you know where Rensouhou-kun is? Why's he not with me?"

Damon stares at her. "Ren...Rensou...er, what?"

"Rensouhou-kun. It's the name of my little companion that I carry around with me. Do you know where he is?"

Damon shrugs. "Dunno...I don't even know who that Rensou-whatever-his-name-is thing is to begin with."

"It's Rensouhou-kun, Admiral. It literally means Twin-gun Turret guy in Japanese."

"That sounds like the corniest name I've ever heard."

Amatsukaze quickly grabs Damon's left hand with her gloved hand, and instantly Damon feels the temperature on his wrist soar to boiling levels of heat. "Don't insult Rensouhou-kun. I'll do a lot more than just burn your skin off. Where is he?"

"I said, I don't know. And it'd be really nice if you could not burn off the hand of your own Admiral, thanks."

Amatsukaze lets go of his hand.

"I think we can have our little icebreaker chat later on," Damon says. "But for now - "

Then, they hear the engine of several vehicles and the screeches of car tires outside the repair shop compound. The alarmed shouts of men and women quickly follow the opening and shutting of car doors.

"Too late. Murakumo, give Amy your MP5-K and ammo. Both of you, neutralize all hostiles!"

"Who's Amy?" Murakumo looks at Damon oddly.

"Amatsukaze, I'm calling you Amy from now on, since your name's kind of a mouthful to say every time. That okay?"

Amatsukaze's lips twist into a frown. "If that's an order...that's not my name, though..."

"I'm calling you Amy, so deal with it. Murakumo, you gave her ballistics information on firearm usage, right?"

"Yeah, I gave her everything that I've learned so far."

"But...this's my first time using a personal firearm..."

"Welcome to your baptism by fire, then."

Murakumo crouches behind the safebox that once contained the inactive Amatsukaze and aims her AK-47 assault rifle at the front door of the garage just as the first few bandits enter the garage to investigate the scene. The AK-47 spits out lethal death, dishing it out to those funneling through the garage entrance, and four bandits hit the floor. As the other bandits outside hear the gunshots and the cries of their comrades falling, they also rush to their aid, but Damon and Amatsukaze lay down fire into the entrance as Murakumo reloads her weapon. Damon dives behind Murakumo as bullets start ricocheting around inside the garage as the surviving bandits begin blindfiring into the garage through the garage door and through the walls from the outside.

"Are you scared or something?" Murakumo smirks at Damon as he waits for the gunfire to die down somewhat so he can return fire.

"Scared? If you mean scared of catching a bullet to my cranium, then I guess I'm scared," Damon smirks back. "Better to be safe than dead."

As soon as Amatsukaze's submachine gun clicks empty, the remaining five bandits then charge into the garage, but Damon and Murakumo simultaneously snap their weapons over their cover and open fire, catching them by surprise and taking down four of them immediately before they have a chance to retaliate. The last bandit, screaming and spraying wildly at their general direction with a Mini-Uzi, consequently suffers the pain of the butt of an MP5-K submachine gun being thrown at his face before Amatsukaze rushes up to him and punches him in the chin so hard that the garage echoes with the snapping of a human neck before the last bandit falls dead outside the garage, punched through the garage wall.

"That's the last of 'em," Damon calls out, tossing aside an empty DMR magazine and inserting a fresh one. "Dunno if this's the last of 'em, so we gotta get out of here fast before more of 'em show up. Amy, here!" Stooping over one of the corpses of the freshly killed bandits, Damon picks up an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle with a simple red dot sight replacing the rail system and tosses it to Amatsukaze, who grabs it hurriedly. "Scavenge some of the ammo from these guys if you find any, you're looking for things like this." He also tosses her a spare magazine he finds from the same body. "If none of these guys have any, there's bodies outside that ou can try searching. Once you find some ammo, we're gettin' the fuck out."

Murakumo peers outside, looking up and down the street of the repair shop compound. She notices someone looking her way down the street to her left before that someone sneaks away quickly.

"Hey! You, stop!" Murakumo yells after the person, but nothing shows around the corner of the street that the person had ran into.

"What's going on?, Murakumo?" Damon asks urgently, his marksman rifle at the ready.

"Someone was looking at us but ran away. I don't think he was with these bandits we just neutralized," Murakumo reports uneasily as Amatsukaze searches the bodies for more 5.56x45mm ammunition upon Damon's order. "We should chase after him...we don't know what he's up to."

"It's a bit too late for that now. Where'd he run off to?"

Murakumo points towards the direction of the street that the mysterious rogue had run off to.

"Yeah, he's definitely long gone. Okay, both of you, listen up. I'm going to run back and get the truck and drive it up to the city through the southern highway. You two, patrol this city for any bandits. You're cleared for contact if they put up any resistance; if they surrender or aren't armed, don't kill them, just knock 'em out if they cause any trouble. Amy, I'm going to check something."

Damon flips down his headset's mouthpiece.

"Are you hearing double?"

Amatsukaze jumps a bit when Damon's voice echoes electronically right in her ears.

"Y-Yeah..." she stammers, rubbing her eyes. "Th-that was weird..."

"You'll get used to it soon enough," Murakumo adds.

"So I'm gonna assume this headset works for any ship girl," Damon marvels. "Such convenience..."

"So how long will it take you to go back?" Murakumo asks.

"If I marathon it back, it should take me only twenty minutes and maybe another ten or fifteen to drive up to the city. I'll let you know when I'm within the city so you can protect it as we drive on through."

* * *

_"So I guess for starters, what the hell were you doin' in the middle of a city like this?" _Damon's voice, huffing and strained as he makes his run back to the Hyundai Manufacturing Plant outside of the city to the south, pokes through to both of the ship girls' ears. Murakumo and Amatsukaze walk north on South Court Street, carrying their assault rifles in their arms and their ammunition in whatever pockets that can hold them.

"Are you talking to me?" Amatsukaze says aloud, uncertain if her voice will reach her Admiral.

_"Well, who else could I be talkin' about?"_

"Ummmm...I don't know. There's nothing recorded in my recent logs...and I'm still kind of overwhelmed by all this information Murakumo's given me..."

"Yeah. This world's a lot different than what it used to be when we were first laid down," Murakumo says, taking out her current magazine from her AK-47 and looking down the inside of the magazine to check her current amount of bullets. "We weren't even launched properly. Where were you supposed to be? You weren't meant to be here at Montgomery, were you?"

"I was to be launched at Charleston, at the Naval Weapons Station and Docks, under the command of an Admiral Anthony Sherman. But it appears that you've tampered with my command protocol and made yourself my commanding Admiral. Did he do the same for you?" Amatsukaze glances at Murakumo.

"Yeah...unfortunately," she replies with a nasty frown. "You didn't see it, but he stabbed both of us in the head with some sort of hacking nanoknife."

Amatsukaze blinks in stunned shock, then reaches up to her forehead and wipes off the trickle of blood on her forehead. "Is that why there was blood on my forehead?"

_"Yeah, I did that, sorry. It was the fastest way to reach your brain, which holds your main processors and databases that I can hack to make you fall under my control."_

Amatsukaze scowls. "You really sound like some kind of evil mastermind, just so you know."

_"Do I? Murakumo's already mentioned that, so it's nothing new. So I guess...we don't know why we found you here, or why those bandit dudes had their hands on you here, of all places."  
_

"No, I'm afraid I don't know, either."

_"And what's up with that glove on your right hand? Some sort of special glove? It just set that dude on fire."_

Amatsukaze looks at her right hand. "According to my data files, I'm programmed to be proficient with the Ignition Glove. It uses some special mixture of bauxite as an energy source...according to the download files that Murakumo gave me, you guys call it 'navitasium'."

"Hey, that's the same stuff that lets me do this!" Murakumo emits her ice shield again for Amatsukaze to see, and the latter flinches a bit as the sudden expansion of Murakumo's personal shielding materializes itself briefly before fading away.

_"Interesting. So we can generally assume that you ship girls are programmed and built to use these...supernatural? We can call 'em supernatural, right?...powers through use of navitasium. But at the same time, it's a consumable resource. How much does your glove have for battery life, Amy?"_

"It can operate for a total of thirty minutes if I leave it on continually, but it recharges on its own."

_"Whoa...a rechargeable battery kinda thing? That changes things..."_

Murakumo and Amatsukaze patrol the street in tense silence, their sensors on the lookout for any disturbance that they can feel.

_"Anything unusual?"_

"Not yet," Murakumo reports back.

_"Good, let's hope it stays that way. I've reached our truck; meet me at the designated rendezvous point in fifteen mikes."_

* * *

Murakumo gains as much speed running as she can across the street, carrying Amatsukaze in her arms, and slamming her feet into the ground so hard that she leaves craters as she jumps. The light pale blue energy pulses again into the street, and Murakumo sails up into the air to reach the overpass above, Highway 82, at the intersection near the Baptist Medical Center and Heliport. She lands softly on the highway just as Damon's utility truck rolls to a stop.

"Ay yo! Amatsukaze, hop in the front seat next to me. Murakumo, ride on the top of the truck and look out for any potential hostiles near us," Damon calls, rolling down his window. They do as he instructs, and the utility truck begins to roll again. Murakumo scans their surroundings, her assault rifle at the ready, and Amatsukaze sighs with a bit of relief as she relaxes in her seat, her red dot AR-15 rifle pointing up in between her knees. Damon peers out to his left and spots a Bell 47-J Ranger helicopter resting on the heliport on top of the Baptist Medical Hospital, narrowing his eyes at it. Amatsukaze notices him looking intently at the helicopter.

"What's wrong, Admiral?"

"That chopper...it's been in use recently. Murakumo, is there a way for you to see when that helicopter's last been used?"

"Uh, what's a helicopter?"

Damon slaps his face with his palm. He had forgotten that there would be no way for the ship girls to know what a helicopter is, historically speaking.

Slowing the truck to a slower speed so that he can give Murakumo time to look at what he's talking about, Damon repeats, "Left side of the truck, top of the nearby hospital. Do you see the vehicle sitting on the roof?"

Murakumo spots the helicopter. "Yeah, I see it. That's called a helicopter?"

"Yeah. I'll explain the details later about it if you want me to, but for now, can you check if its engine's been used recently?"

"Um..." Murakumo's sensors work quickly to compile a result. "I'm picking up faint heat signatures from its major components. Comparing them to heat signatures of this truck's engine, I'd say it's last been used around ten hours ago."

"Then that means someone's been using it...probably one of the bandit groups runnin' around in the city," Damon concludes. "We might run into them as we're moving outta the city, so stay frosty."

Amatsukaze looks at the Admiral again. "What's that mean?"

"Stay frosty?"

Amatsukaze nods.

"Military lingo for 'stay alert'."

Amatsukaze nods again and picks up her AR-15, holding it left-handed. "You were in the military?"

"No, but I worked a lot with military contractors and private military companies," Damon says, constantly scanning his surroundings and driving with one hand on the wheel and the other hand gripping his Glock 37 in case of a possible ambush. "There's not really much of a military to speak of anywhere in the world anyway."

"Because of this World War III thing, right?"

Damon nods. "The nukes destroyed everything that held military significance. America lost 85% of its standing military forces and equipment - other countries were a bit luckier, and some countries just got completely shit on and saw their militaries completely evaporate. Really the only standing military forces are PMC's or factions like the ones you see down here in the South."

"And from what I can see from the files that Murakumo sent me, you're attempting to build the world's strongest military force by capturing us ship girls and putting us under your command." Amatsukaze pops a devilish smirk. "Is that really going to work, though?"

"Getting two ship girls under my command in less than three days? That's a hell of a better start than I could've ever imagined getting," Damon grins. "Luck's been falling in my favor the last few days. I'd like to continue the luck streak if I can. But that's the plan, anyway. Get as many ship girls as I can that I can find, and have the world under my thumb."

"Do you really think that's necessary? You say you're going to end people's suffering in this world, yet you're going to use military force through us to do it? Isn't that counterintuitive?"

The truck hits a nice cruising speed of eighty miles an hour. "Maybe if this world wasn't nuked to all hell, I'd consider politics as a way to change the world, but from what I've read about American politics before the bombs dropped, I would've said fuck politics. In this world now, politics really only focus on domestic stuff. Can't blame 'em, either. There's literally no international communication going on right now...maybe the occasional radio broadcast or somethin', but nothing more. In a post-apocalyptic world like this, it's literally the survival of the fittest - the fittest, the smartest, the strongest, whatever. Things like morals and fairness I don't bother to factor in when I'm lookin' at my goals in the broad sense of things. I've decided that using you ship girls was the most realistic chance I'd get at changin' the world, and that's exactly what I'm doing."

Damon glances over at Amatsukaze.

"Besides, I've already mentioned this with Murakumo, but...I find it really fuckin' odd that ship girls like you have a sense of morals or something."

"Because we're ship girls and not human?" Amatsukaze frowns at him.

"Yeah. Listen, both of you. There are lots of human beings out there that either grow up in situations where they're inclined to hold prejudices against other things or people. The fact that humans have had a fear of machinery 'n stuff like that ever since sci-fi novels 'n movies 'n crap foretold of machines rising up to take over human society and bullcrap like that doesn't really help, either. Most likely, when people meet you and find out that you're basically a computer AI inside a human body, it might be hard for them to see you as a human. They won't expect you to have things like emotions or a sense of justice or righteousness, even though so far it appears that you do. And I'm guilty of that as well, as I've clearly demonstrated."

Amatsukaze crosses her arms, pressing her rifle against her chest. "That's bullshit. We were programmed to mesh with human society while we were off-duty. We might not be human, but we're damned close."

"But that's how a lot of humans are. I'm not saying everyone's like that...but the world's got its fair share of assholes and fuckfaces. I mean, those kinds of people are the people you can thank for nukin' the world and makin' it as it is."

"I bet you're one of those people, Admiral," Murakumo laughs as the wind lifts her smooth light pale blue hair flying behind her.

"I could be. After all, I'm a control freak, lookin' for as many girls to control as I can," Damon smirks shortly. "Quick question, Murakumo, since you've been around for longer, is that seriously what you think of me?"

"Is that an order?"

"No, I'm just curious. You can lie to my face all you want, but I'd like to know."

"You're an asshole. You shot a baby the day you activated me."

"Bad Admiral, bad," Amatsukaze lightly taps Damon on his right arm with the front of her left fist.

"Yeah...leave the baby, it's gonna die. Take the baby, it's gonna die. Kill the baby, it's gonna die. No matter what I did, you could call me an asshole whichever way."

"You're still an asshole."

Damon sighs. "So that's what I am to you from now on? Just an asshole?"

"That's right."

"Thanks a lo - "

Suddenly, the shattering of glass cuts his voice off, and the truck wobbles dangerously on the highway for a split second.

"Admiral!?" Murakumo screams, hanging onto the top of the truck. "What's going on?! What was that?!"

"Murakumo, the Admiral's wounded!" Amatsukaze calls loudly, looking around for the source of the bullet that went through the front window and struck Damon on the right shoulder. "Admiral, stop the truck and get to cov - eeek! ! ! !"

"Hold on, you two!" Damon yells as he begins swerving the truck left and right in a random pattern to avoid getting hit again. "It's a sniper - he's only using a .22 hunting rifle, and I got hit in a nonvital area, so don't worry about me. Both of you, find the sniper so I can take him out!"

"It - it would be really nice if you could stop swerving the truck like this! ! !" Murakumo shrieks, lying flat against the top of the truck. Another bullet dinks off the side of the truck, and Murakumo, catching the bullet path, quickly calculates the bullet trajectory and back-tracks it to its source - a man in a smudgy white undershirt and a makeshift scarf and torn half-jeans holding a hunting rifle.

"Target located, he's on top of the water tower to our left!" Murakumo calls, and immediately, Damon swerves the truck to his left and slams on the brake. Another bullet whizzes through Amatsukaze's window, causing her to scream, and shatters Damon's side window by barely missing his chin. Damon grabs Amatsukaze's AR-15 by the barrel.

"I'm borrowing this, Amy! Get outta the truck and get behind it on my side, move!" Damon bellows, nudging open his door and tumbling out of the truck as blood slowly trickles down his shirt. Amatsukaze rolls out of the truck after him and slams her back against the truck, and Murakumo drops down with them as well.

"On the water tower, you said?" Damon asks, and Murakumo nods urgently. "Distance?"

"About four to five hundred meters."

"Then this rifle should do it, I don't have time to get out the DSR." Damon checks the safety on his borrowed rifle. "Amy, I'm gonna fuckin' yell at you later for not putting the safety on, just keep that in mind."

"H-Huh?! What did I do!?" Amatsukaze starts protesting, but Damon cuts her off.

"Listen. Amy, I need you to distract that sniper by showing yourself on that side of the truck." Damon points at the other end of the vehicle. "All you need to do is make sure you show yourself enough so that the sniper sees you. He'll get distracted by you, and he'll take his aim off. Murakumo, I need you to follow her and pop out at the same time and put suppressive fire onto the guy. I'll put the kill shots onto him."

"But..." Murakumo eyes Damon's injury. "But you're hurt. Are you sure you can still - "

"I gave you your orders, Murakumo, now _fucking do it! _Go!" Damon waves them off, almost angrily, and both of the ship girls do as they are instructed.

"Will he be okay?" Amatsukaze says worriedly. "That's...that's not what the Admiral Protection Protocol tells us to do..."

Murakumo bites her lip. "It's the first time I've seen him injured at all," she mutters, gripping her AK-47 tighter than ever before. "But we need to do as he says. We'll treat his injury later once we get to a safer place."

"Amy, Murakumo, do it!" Damon yells again, and the two girls emerge from the side of the truck. Murakumo aims in the general direction of the water tower and begins to fire off shots, and Damon peeks out a second later as Murakumo squeezes off her first bullet to search for the sniper. He spots him attempting to climb down the tower.

"Sucks for you there ain't no ladder up to that bitch, eh?" Damon mutters fiercely as he lines up his shot as best he can with the red dot sight on the AR-15. He opens fire, carefully placing accurate shots onto his target. Finally, on his eleventh shot, the sniper, about to jump the rest of the way to the ground, suddenly jerks his head backwards and falls backwards the rest of the way down to the ground, landing right on his neck.

"Did you get him?" Amatsukaze calls out once Damon stops firing.

"Headshot. Plus, he landed on his neck, so even if he survives that shot somehow, he ain't walkin'."

Murakumo and Amatsukaze rush over to Damon, who puts the safety back on his rifle again. Murakumo kneels by him as Amatsukaze stands over her, checking his shoulder.

"It's not too deep, thankfully," Murakumo murmurs. "I'll go get some ba - "

"No time. We need to get the fuck off this highway," Damon hisses. "Get in the truck. I'm takin' a detour, in case there's more snipers along the way."

"But _you just got shot!"_ Murakumo emphasizes with disbelief.

"Shot by a twenty-two in a part of my body that doesn't give a damn if it's shot or not. The bleeding will stop by itself. Here, Amy, take your rifle back."

Damon climbs into the truck and slams the door. Murakumo hops up to the top of the truck, but this time she is joined by Amatsukaze.

"Admiral, I'm going to hang out with Murakumo so I can provide cover better," Amatsukaze calls. "It was hard for me to shoot inside the truck."

"Okay. Hang on, I'm goin' as fast as we can."

The truck roars off into the highway and takes an exit turn to stay on Highway 82.

* * *

"How can you not care about your own body when you get injured like this?" Murakumo asks incredulously as she ties applies a medical patch to Damon's skin at the entry wound. Damon, having taken off his shirt to treat himself, wipes his skin with some wet wipes from the back of the truck, folding up the bloody tissue and putting it in his pocket. He has parked the truck in the abandoned parking lot of what used to be the Taylor Oaks Townhouses, away from the highway, to treat his gunshot wound.

"This isn't my first time gettin' shot," Damon says, exhaling and releasing a puff of refreshing lemon up into the air from his fruit cigarette. "Last time was a hell of a lot worse...a goddamn .45 ACP right in between the lungs. This one was only a frickin' .22. If that sniper had any better of a gun, I'd be looking at a useless right arm, or maybe no right arm at all." Murakumo wraps some medical bandages around the patch, tying it tightly to apply pressure and prevent further blood loss. "Thanks."

"But you still have that bullet inside you, don't you?" Amatsukaze mentions. "I checked your seat when we stopped here, and there wasn't an exit wound. Heck, it didn't even have more than a few spots of blood on the bottom. That, and these bullets are made out of lead, right? Wouldn't a human like you get lead poisoning if it's left inside your body for too long? Is it okay to just leave it there?"

"For now, it's not a problem. Once my body recognizes it as a foreign object and starts tryin' to get rid of it, I'll need a bit of surgery to get it out." Damon takes the cigarette from his mouth and holds it in between his fingers. "Though, I'm surprised you two were actually freakin' out over the fact that I got shot. For girls who don't really seem to have a high opinion of me, you sure as hell were quick to tell me to treat myself."

Both Amatsukaze's and Murakumo's cheeks flush.

"I-It's pre-programmed into our primary protocols!" Murakumo blurts furiously. "We protect our commanding officers or Admirals no matter what! Even we know how easy it is for humans to die, whereas we ship girls, compared to humans, anyway, can take a lot more to get destroyed."

"And don't think we're doing for you, specifically!" Amatsukaze adds. "No matter who our Admiral is, we protect them at any cost. Don't think of this as an opportunity to get us to serve you or anything!"

Damon looks at Amatsukaze funnily. "What makes you think I'd do that? Besides, you're my soldiers before my medics. I wasn't aware of the fact that you ship girls were programmed to be babysitters as well, but now I know..."

"How many times are we gonna say this!? We're not your damn babysitters!" Murakumo kicks Damon on his right arm.

"Ow - fuck!" Damon grits his teeth and holds his injury as his wound pulses with pain and blood. The bandage patch that Murakumo had applied develops a small dark spot where blood surged out of the bullet wound for a brief moment when Murakumo kicked him.

"Oh shi - I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Murakumo, realizing the rashness of her action, stoops to check his wound but is simultaneously hesitant to come close to Damon. "Er...I'm really sorry about that, Admiral, I...I forgot you can still feel pain from that wound..."

Damon says nothing as he puts his cigarette back in his mouth and chews down on it, waiting for the pain to subside.

"Way to go, dumbass!" Amatsukaze hisses over to Murakumo.

"Sh-Shut up! I wasn't thinking, okay? Stop making this worse!" Murakumo hisses back. "Don't make me - "

"Can you two shut the fuck up?" Damon growls, and both of them immediately stop talking. "Don't argue among yourselves when someone gets hurt or something bad happens. I don't give two flying pigs' asses when you have petty 'n useless arguments that no one cares about. But when something bad happens, arguing amongst yourselves is the worst thing that you can do. It turns a shitty situation into a god-awful one, and when people start blamin' each other for what went wrong 'n shit like that, that's when you know you're absolutely fucked!"

"But we weren't blaming each other for anything!" Amatsukaze protests. "We were just teasing each oth - "

"Teasing, blaming, whatever, I _don't fucking care!_" Damon growls again, even louder this time. "Just shut up and follow my orders. Even if there's someone who's clearly to blame for something that might've happened, you shut up and talk about it at a future time, when you don't have to worry about whether or not something else's 'bout to happen!" Damon glares at the two ship girls. "And yes, this is a motherfucking order!"

"Understood," Amatsukaze and Murakumo both grumble.

"And Murakumo, I really hope you don't do that to me again if I have a more serious wound."

"L-Like I said, it was an accident!"

"Yeah? Plenty of people die by accidents. What if you opened up my wound again? What if you pushed the bullet inside my shoulder around where it starts irritating my nerves and pretty soon, I won't be able to use my right arm anymore? Is you sayin' sorry gonna fix that shit?"

"Then what the hell do you want me to do? I'm not a goddamn doctor, like you said! I just tried helping you, and I made a bad decision, and I said sorry! What more do you fucking want, then, Admiral!?" Murakumo is, by this point, yelling at Damon.

"What I want is to not have to command ship girls who are stupid and rash, doin' things that they don't think about. That's what I fucking want, Murakumo, Amy." Damon sighs heavily. "Maybe it's easier for you to survive, because there's very little in this world that can ever have the hopes of hurting or damaging you. Bullets don't do jack shit, so the only things you'd be hurt by are artillery pieces and an E.M.P. detonation, the latter of which probably doesn't even exist nowadays anyway. But remember that your Admiral is still human. I'm still pretty fuckin' easy to kill. I'm one tough motherfucker, yeah, but watch." Murakumo and Amatsukaze watch as Damon pulls out his Glock 37 and points the end of the barrel right at the side of his head. "If I pull the trigger, I'm dead. One clean shot to the head or the heart, and any fuckin' human being is dead. Almost a guarantee. This'll sound selfish coming from a human like me, but you girls need to keep in mind who everyone else is. Not everyone is a ship girl with special properties and powers. Pain to us humans'll probably hurt a lot worse than it might to you ship girls. So Murakumo, don't kick me in the arm, especially not when I have an injury. Got it?"

Murakumo averts her eyes, muttering, "Yes, sir..."

"For fuck's sake, so much for the Admiral Protection Protocol or whatever kinda stupid fuckin' protocol you girls have..." Damon spits bitterly. "Patches up my wound, then kicks me and makes it bleed again. Like, what the fuck kinda sense does _that_ make?"

Murakumo stomps her foot in frustration. "With all due respect, Admiral, can you please just shut the hell up about it now?!" she yells. "What can't you understand? It was a mistake! I apologized! And I get it, I wasn't acting as best as I could! Just shut up about it now! Can't you see that I understand?! God!"

Amatsukaze watches the other two with a bit of nervousness. Damon gives a short _hmph! _and stands up to go to the truck. Murakumo sits down on the curb angrily.

"What the hell's up with him? Fuck that guy," Murakumo complains, kicking the ground. "Why'd I have to end up working for someone like him..."

"Was he always like this?" Amatsukaze asks, almost timidly.

"Well...no, but...it's just...he's so hard to work with sometimes!" Murakumo rubs her hair in irritation. "I just don't know what he's gonna do from one minute to the next! Humans are so freaking random, I don't get it...one minute he's all cool and chill, and the next minute he's yelling at me for no reason..."

"You...kinda did do something stupid, though..." Amatsukaze gives her fellow ship girl a well-you-kinda-had-that-one-coming look.

"Are you seriously going to bring that up again...?"

"No, not really, now that Admiral just ordered us not to argue..."

"I didn't think so."

Damon walks back to the two and sets down one of the big weapon cases next to Amatsukaze. He opens it up and takes out one of the AA-12 automatic shotguns. After inspecting it, he shoves the shotgun into Amatsukaze's hands.

"Huh - hey, what the heck's this thing?" Amatsukaze asks, bewildered.

"That's a specialty firearm called a shotgun. Because you're fast and mobile, you seem like the perfect user for this kind of a weapon. Starting today, that's yours. Oh, and don't waste the ammo. That's an order."


	9. Fragile Summer

It is late afternoon as the utility truck takes the only serviceable eastbound ramp to transition from Freeway 231 onto Interstate 85. However, as it does so, its driver, Damon Polchow, slows to a stop before a barricade, guarded by a posse of sixteen armed men and women. One of them, wearing a long headband with its ends drooping down his back down to the backs of his shoulders, wears a mysterious grin as the truck slows to a stop and raises a megaphone.

"'Ey, you, driver dude," he calls out through the megaphone, "come on out. I wanna talk."

Damon narrows his eyes at the megaphone man's weapon hanging at his left hip: an FN P-90 with a EO-Tech sight.

"What do we do, Admiral?" Amatsukaze asks tensely, keeping her fully automatic AA-12 combat shotgun under the window out of sight of the bandits.

"Come with me," Damon mutters. "Take off your safeties but keep your guns in your hands in case shit goes south."

Shutting off the engine, Damon hops out of the truck, making sure that everyone gets a good glimpse of his MK-14 Rogue Chassis designated marksman rifle, and Amatsukaze and Murakumo emerge with their AA-12 and AK-47, respectively.

"Oi, oi, I didn't say you could come out with guns," the megaphone man yells, but Damon hollers back,

"It ain't gonna make much sense if you can have sixteen guys all barrelstuffin' our asses like that without havin' guns of our own, so you can go fuck off. What do you want?"

Damon approaches the bandit with the megaphone, and Amatsukaze and Murakumo flank him closely, keeping a wary eye on all of their potential enemies, looking for any sudden movement.

"Fine, fine, it's only fair, right? I mean, it ain't like we already outnumber you sixteen to mothafuckin' three..." he laughs, and lowering his megaphone, the bandit with the P-90 submachine gun waits for the three to get within comfortable talking distance. "So...jus' wanna say sorry earlier."

"Sorry?" Damon raises an eyebrow. "What for?"

"For _that_," the bandit points at Damon's wounded and bandaged shoulder. "That was one of our sniper dudes overlookin' the major highways that run through Montgomery. He thought maybe you guys were the Cottonheads, so he opened fire."

Damon crosses his arms. "But we killed his ass."

"Yeah, well, he had it comin'. Nothin' we can do ta drag a guy's soul outta hell, right? Don't worry 'bout it. See, I jus' stopped ya to say that, and to say thanks for basically wipin' out the fuckin' Cottonheads for us."

"Cottonheads? Who're they?"

"Who're they? Damn, son, you must be outta state. Haven'tcha heard 'a all these gang wars goin' on?"

Damon shakes his head. "Mind filling me in? I was just passing through the city and next thing I know it's like some kinda fuckin' warzone. What's goin' on?"

The bandit with the P-90 laughs. "It's easy to explain. So basically, there's been this urban legend goin' on...is that the term people use these days, 'urban legend'? Whatever. Anyway, so, rumors been goin' around. How someone found a super weapon somewhere in Montgomery that, if ya get it, it'll, like, do the work of a hundred soldiers, ya know? So the thing _is, _one guy claimed to have found it first and bragged his ass off 'bout it like fuckin' retarded dipshit that most people are, and soon before ya know it, people're up in arms 'bout it. Passes from one set 'a hands to another. And here's the funny thing: it's like a container thing, but once they opened it, they didn't know how to activate it. All kinds'a rumors flyin' around. How it's some sorta secret machine the government built before the war, or maybe even after the war to fight in a post-apocalyptic scenario shit like this. Honestly, you ever play Fallout 3?"

"The only kind of fallout that I know of is the one that makes you die like a bitch."

The bandit laughs hysterically. "You're fuckin' hilarious, ya know that? Sorry man, ya missed out, it was a great game. Managed to skimp it off one of my friends back when I was bein' a lazy ol' bitch in the CCPL post up in New Hampshire and play it on some old computer I found in one of the basements fulla old shit. Ironic how the world turns into a shitstorm like this, eh? Yeah, so anyway, all these people buyin' into the rumors of this super weapon bullcrap, and all of a sudden, all these bigger gangs start showin' up...and the two that came out on top before y'all crashed in was us: the Cottonheads and the Mercs."

"So you're the Mercs."

"It's jus' what we call ourselves, we didn't bother with some fancy-shmancy title or bullshit like that. So yeah, we've been dukin' it out with 'em for a few days tryin' ta regain control of the city 'n find that container that they had."

"So that super-weapon thing fell into the Cottonheads' hands."

The bandit nods his head. "Yup! And guess what?" He lifts his submachine gun and points it directly at Damon's heart. "We gonna ask you to hand it over."

Amatsukaze and Murakumo immediately raise their own weapons, but the barrels of sixteen different firearms all point simultaneously at the three.

Damon gives a wry smile. "So how exactly do you know that I have that weapon?"

"We had one of our scouts confirm it. He said he saw you three in that big ol' garage and repair shop loungin' around in there with Cottonhead assholes lyin' in their own blood 'n shit all around. So don't lie to me, cocksucker, I know you got it. Hand it the fuck over."

Damon continues to smile nefariously. "Hmmm, I won't deny that I do have it. Though, I'll tell ya, it ain't somethin' I can just 'hand over'."

"Look, bro, I'm tryin' ta make this nice 'n easy for all of us here. I'm givin' ya a chance, can't'cher bitchass see that? I don't wanna shoot a cunt, but if I have ta, I will. Now hand it over, otherwise I'ma ask you to hand over those girls, too. I mean, let's be honest, I got some guys here who haven't had a good fuck in years, includin' me. And I'm sure they got their eyes on 'em hot bods you got goin' on."

Murakumo gives the bandit the middle finger. "Fuck off, creep."

"Oi, you lil' cuntnugget, don't tell me ta fuck off!" the bandit roars, taking a few steps forward and raising the back of his left hand to slap Murakumo across the face.

Just as he does so, Damon moves in a flash. His left hand twirls his karambit blade into its grasp and hooks the end of the blade deep into the bandit's throat and severs the trachea and spine, causing the end of the blade to poke out through the other side.

"MURAKUMO!" Damon bellows.

The highway explodes with gunfire as sixteen armed men and women with pistols and semi-automatic scopeless hunting rifles bombard the three of them with impunity in reaction to Damon's murder. However, a light pale blue shield expands just in time to deflect all incoming fire away from Damon, and the bandits cease fire at amazement and horror as the bullets, frozen and adhered to the shield, drop and shatter into pieces as Murakumo deactivates her shield.

"No one needs to know what I found in there," Damon articulates slowly, as if he is roleplaying as a villain in some superhero story. "Finders keepers...isn't that what this world's made of these days anyway? I fought for it, and I took it, and I captured it. Fuck the rest of you. And now that you've seen it, sorry...but I guess none of you are gettin' off this highway."

Before any of the Mercs can react, a deafening shotgun blast sends one of the bandits flying in a mist of blood off the side of the highway, and Amatsukaze, seemingly warping herself behind another bandit, grabs him by the back of the neck, causing his body to catch fire, and throws the hulking burning body across the highway to knock over two more people in a line and setting their clothes on fire as well. As the mayhem begins, the remaining bandits begin firing wildly, and a few even fall due to friendly fire. Amatsukaze herself catches a few bullets, but because of her Smartsteel construct, the bullets ping off with no consequence whatsoever. The majority are dispatched by Murakumo's 7.62x39mm rounds and Amatsukaze's Ignition Glove. One of the last bandits even jumps off the highway down to the ground below, a thirty-something foot drop, and Damon can hear the distant cracks of his ankles and the consequent screams of agony echoing up from ground zero. Pulling out his Glock 39, he puts a round into the side of the head of the last Merc, who was about to fire off his pistol at the back of Murakumo.

"All hostiles eliminated," Murakumo shouts, tossing aside a spent magazine of her assault rifle onto the highway.

"Not quite," Damon calls out.

"Huh? You gotta be kidding, more reinforcements?"

"No, not exactly that..." Damon walks over to the edge of the highway and leans over, and he sees the Merc down on the streets below quivering in pain and entering shock trauma. He aims his gun down at the street and calmly fires, and the asphalt is painted with a fresh splatter of red blood and white bone, and the whimpering and choking cease. "Now they're all dead. Let's get the fuck outta here, we ain't got a reason to stay in this shit-stained city anymore."

* * *

"Do we not have to worry about the highway falling out from underneath us?" Amatsukaze asks as she carries the medical supply box out from the back of the utility truck to use as a chair and sets it down softly on the side of the highway. Damon has decided to simply set up camp for the night on the Interstate 85 highway, overlooking the southern tip of West Point Lake.

"This part of the highway's still strong enough to support the truck overnight," Damon replies, clipping his fingernails over the edge of the highway.

"And how do you know?" Amatsukaze stands by Damon.

"Driving ain't just about gettin' from one place to another. Good drivers can feel the condition of the road they're drivin' on...in my case, I know whether or not it's safe to continue drivin' on a collapsin' highway. That, and..."

Damon points off to the distance. Just as he does so, the last bit of the sun is swallowed up by the horizon, but the brilliant colors of the late evening, accentuated by the hazy clouds above, produce an eerily beautiful landscape in an otherwise bleak and depressingly silent world.

"It's not every day I have the chance to see a sight like that."

Amatsukaze shrugs. "It's just a sunset. Nothing to freak out about."

Damon taps his nail clipper against the side of the highway cement. "You don't think it's beautiful?"

"Well...I mean, it is. But...I don't find it mind-blowing or anything. Maybe it's programmed differently for us ship girls. Beauty is a perception thing, after all, isn't it?"

Damon gazes at the sky off at the horizon and the sunlight that reflects off the surface of the somewhat irradiated waters of West Point Lake. Putting his hands on his hips, he sighs.

"Yeah, you're right. It's definitely a perception thing. 'Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder'...or somethin' like that."

Murakumo also joins them, also placing down one of the larger boxes from the utility truck to use as a seat.

"What're you guys talking about?" she asks, interested in their conversation.

"Beauty," Damon responds. "Amy and I were just talkin' about what we think about it."

"It would be nice if you called me by my real name..." Amatsukaze mutters, but Damon ignores her complaint.

"Beauty?" Murakumo frowns. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Damon points at the brilliant sunset off in the distance towards the lake. "As in this: do you think that sunset's beautiful?"

"...I suppose, but that's not something I feel like I should be amazed by or anything. Why, what about you?"

Damon takes a seat on the medical supply box that Amatsukaze had brought out. "See...this is how I think, 'k? I like things like this. Really wonderful, great landscapes or sunsets. I've only seen a couple of 'em before. Hell, there ain't a lotta shit in this world that really comes off as beautiful anymore...not that I know really what was beautiful before the nukes ruined everything."

Damon sighs lightly and leans slightly backwards, resting his hands against the box surface behind him.

"But growin' up confined in a few specific areas and bein' surrounded by nothin' but dead vegetation, irradiated shit, 'n concrete 'n steel everywhere ain't how human beings are supposed ta live. It's like...it's like livin' in a prison. You have to live there, otherwise if you wander outside without knowin' what the hell you're doin', you die. And even if you do choose to live inside a CCPL post, it's like, you don't even wanna live there 'cause it doesn't even feel natural. The griminess, the smell of steel 'n rock 'n concrete 'n shit that humans made, artificial shit, it wears you down over time. That shit ain't what I would call 'beautiful'. Beautiful is shit like _this_."

Waving his arm about towards the sunset, Damon continues.

"I didn't mention this yet, but part of the reason why I do wanna work to get the world under my control is to make it possible for humans to view things like this again. I really hate livin' in this kind of a world...a world where everywhere you go, you see ruined cities, broken highways, hazy orange clouds fuckin' everywhere. Outside of CCPL posts or places like Mobile, the only people you're ever gonna meet are people who wanna kill ya 'n take your shit. All that bullcrap is ugly. Downright, fuckin' godawful _ugly_. Ugly, ugly, ugly is all that fuckin' shit ever is. And I'm tired 'a that. I'm tired of havin' to look at ugly shit. I'm tired of havin' to eat ugly shit. I'm tired of havin' to drink ugly shit, that fuckin' bullshit fluid that they toss in a couple iodine tablets 'n call that shit _water_. I'm tired of livin' in an ugly-ass world where everything's the same shade 'a orange or red or yellow or shit like that. It gets frustrating, and like I said, it wears people down...breaks 'em, tears 'em apart on the inside."

Amatsukaze and Murakumo have also taken seats next to him, gazing at either him or at the sunset.

"Why do you think that is?" Amatsukaze asks. "That humans break down like that?"

"In my opinion, people can't handle livin' in a world that's so goddamn hostile to 'em," Damon muses. "Environmental and psychological factors play a huge role in the well-being of human beings. Even if you make sure your body meets all the requirements that it needs to meet in order to survive, if you live with a kinda mentality that says 'oh, it's so shitty to live like this, why am I even living in a shitty place like this', your health is bound to tank. It's happened to plenty 'a people, much more so among older people, since their bodies are more prone to psychological damage that then translates into physical damage. There are those who just simply can't handle the reality that they're forced to live in a world that's devoid of anything that they used to have before the world got bombed to all hell, so either they start goin' mad, not 'cause of the radiation, but because their minds break - their wills break. That'd be it - they refuse to accept their current situation, and they try rejecting it the best they can. And oftentimes, rejection equals a slow, suicidal breakdown."

"Then what about you?" Murakumo asks in turn. "Why do you think you're any different from those kinds of people, if you are?"

"First of all, I was born in this shithole, you have to keep in mind," Damon replies quickly. "I don't know what life was like before the nukes dropped, so I have the advantage of not being held back by a better, more comfortable reality or lifestyle that the survivors have to suffer. That, and my entire life's been nothin' but ugly. Ugly is what I know, so I'm used to it. I don't know the 'beauty' that the survivors knew...so I'm in no way held back by it. And the rare times that I do come across something that I feel is beautiful, like this sunset - " Damon points off into the distance again - "it's utterly amazing. Personally, I love moments like these."

A few moments of pensive, quiet silence pass as the three of them gaze off into the darkening sky.

"Maybe you two don't really quite get what I'm talking about now," Damon sighs. "You are, after all, ships girls, girls who're basically computers in human bodies. From what I can tell by interactin' with you two, you seem to be aware of shit like beauty, morals, whatever - things that normally are only exclusively human properties. But just 'cause you have 'em and know what they are clearly doesn't mean that you really _have _to acknowledge them, as you've both demonstrated."

"Well, that, and we just haven't been activated for much time at all," Murakumo points out. "It's only been two days since my activation, and Amatsukaze hasn't been online for more than half a day. Obviously we still need to record more memories and experiences to really apply them to things like beauty and stuff like that to understand, you know. That's what I'm guessing, anyway."

Damon nods. "And that's kinda what I'm hoping to teach all of you ship girls, too. To show you girls what I think are beautiful. This..." he waves his arm again at the brilliant evening sky - "is what I think is beautiful. And I'm hopin' that you'll eventually look back on today and agree with me, that this shit truly is something to remember."

"What if we don't think so?" Amatsukaze counters.

"Then I mean, if you don't wanna think this is great, then you don't have to," Damon replies. "I'm not some kinda fuckin' thought police. While I may govern your actions, I don't govern your thoughts, and there's a huge fuckin' difference between 'em. I'm not asking or ordering you to agree with me. But it'd be nice if you did."

Another moment of pensive silence passes before one of the ship girls again asks another question.

"What else did you see that you thought were beautiful, then?" Murakumo asks.

"Hmmm...for starters, I remember visiting Mount Rushmore, that place up in South Dakota, by heli. Mount Rushmore's this area where four of America's presidents' faces are carved into granite, really big monuments. I dunno...just bein' able to look down on those faces from up high, it was just somethin' that took my breath away." Damon rub his chin. "I could name a few others, but I need to make dinner for us, so I'll end by sayin' that I think the most beautiful thing I can think of is my mom."

"Your mom?" Amatsukaze starts, but then quiets as her memory database also brings up the information that Murakumo had given her that Damon's mother is deceased. "I guess...I guess it's natural for you to think that. Though, I think it's fair to say that...you know, neither of us can say we can feel sorry for you, since, like, we don't know what having parents is like. What was she like, though? If Murakumo's data is correct, you said she died when you were two years old."

"Honestly..." Damon cracks a shy smile, "I don't remember all too much. You can't really fault me for not bein' able to recall much from when I was only two. But even still, whenever I think about my mom, it's like I get the feeling that everything'll be okay, that things'll turn out for the better."

"Well...that's really vague," Murakumo remarks.

"It is, I know. But not everything's determined by cold, hard, concrete data," Damon says. "But to me, that also constitutes as 'beauty' as well. If something can give me that kind of a feeling, a feeling of security and the freedom from worry, then it's a beautiful thing." He turns to his ship girls. "Listen...beauty is whatever you make it out to be. Everyone's got their own standards of what beauty is and isn't, and there's nothing or no one else that can force you to see otherwise unless you yourself change your mind. It can be the most sophisticated explanation, or it can be the dumbest fuckin' reason, whatever. If you think something's beautiful, then that's great. I have things that I consider to be beautiful - and I'm working to get them. That's the biggest thing that sets me apart from the rest, in my own convoluted opinion that probably doesn't matter to anyone else in the world but me..."

Damon stands up to prepare dinner, but he stops.

"Though, if I were to add something else to my really short and irrelevant list of things that I think are beautiful..." Damon murmurs, "it'd have to be you two, I guess."

Damon cannot help but give an amused smile at Murakumo's and Amatsukaze's reactions as they both immediately blush furiously and leap off their own boxes and begin yelling at him in return.

"W-Who're you calling b-b-beautiful?!" Murakumo shouts, while Amatsukaze yells, "W-What're you saying all of a sudden? ! ? ! ?"

"Why're you two getting angry at me? I'm complementing you," Damon chuckles. "Man, what's your problem?"

"B-B-B-Because you're just trying to use that as an excuse to get all close 'n comfy with us!" Murakumo blurts. "That's not gonna work, okay!?"

"That wasn't my explicit intention, but okay, whatever. I'm just telling you what I think, is all," Damon rummages through his backpack to get out some stored food and the skillet to cook. "I know that you girls aren't really that aware of yourselves, but coming from someone who's lived in this world where there ain't a lotta good-looking girls, both of you are actually really, really damn hot."

Neither of the ship girl destroyers can even muster up anything to say in response to Damon's words, so they simply glare at him with red faces and embarrassed looks.

"I'm not kidding. I don't mean to bring this up to make things awkward, but that guy from earlier - the guy with the megaphone - you remember how he mentioned you two have 'hot bods' or something like that. Even though I sliced that fucker's throat in half, if there was anything he said that I'd agree with, it's that."

"S-So you're also a pervert who only keeps us around for your own viewing pleasure?" Murakumo accuses.

"No, don't twist my words out of context. You will be, first and foremost, my soldiers and my ships. You will be my army and my navy that I will use to further my own agenda and objectives. What I'm saying is that it's really nice and lucky of me that the soldiers that I have control of at the moment just so happen to be attractive girls. As a guy, I can't complain. If you think my judgment of your physical appearances are the equivalent of the thoughts and actions of a pervert, then I suppose I will forever be a pervert in your eyes. Though, I personally would disagree." Damon sets up the materials and points at the back of the utility truck. "Don't stand there 'n stare at me, go get a few pieces of timber from the back so I can make dinner for us, will you?"

* * *

The highway is filled with the familiar smells of cooking food. Illuminated mostly by firelight, since by this point the sky has darkened to the point where sunlight is no longer a reliable source of light for the rest of the evening, the little camp area that Damon, Amatsukaze, and Murakumo have set up to eat is being taken over by smells of bacon, sausage patties, broccoli, and tomatoes, in addition to a few new foods such as zucchini and mutton chops.

Needless to say, Amatsukaze's mouth is watering uncontrollably as she eagerly watches Damon shake the skillet over the campfire on the side of the broken highway, turning over the strips of bacon and sausage patties and making sure to pour a dab of maple syrup.

"When did you learn how to cook, anyway?" Murakumo asks, a bit bored while watching Damon prepare their dinner.

"Back when I used to live in those CCPL posts. During the first five years or so after the nukes dropped, our diets basically consisted of canned food and emergency preservation food, shit like that. There _were_ times that we came close to starving, but surprisingly those times were pretty rare, at least from what I've heard around the US. The Feds did a damn good job makin' sure that all the CCPL posts that got established in most major cities that didn't get nuked got enough stuff to make sure the people there survived. But jus' 'cause you got food doesn't mean it's gonna taste good."

Damon blows a bit on the top of the skillet, and Amatsukaze and Murakumo watch the light frying smoke waft away from Damon.

"I got sick 'n tired of eatin' crappy food day in, day out. But back then, in those fuckin' CCPL posts, there was virtually no way for normal people to get their hands on anything better than the food they handed out...the rations. Those fucking rations...God, I hated them. Then, I remember one month I helped out one of the directors at the CCPL post up in Columbus in Ohio, and he paid me in food. Like, as in, real, good food. Not the crap I ate outta cans 'n shit for like, years. Actual food. I almost fuckin' begged him to teach me how to cook, but he didn't, so I learned to do it myself. Stole ingredients from the kitchens, tried cooking for myself. It was tough, not having anything for reference and learning how to cook from scratch. Just had to get the feel of the ropes all by myself...tough, but I think it's one of my most valuable skills. I'd've killed myself a long time ago if I didn't learn..."

Dividing up the food onto two plates, Damon hands the food to Murakumo and Amatsukaze, the latter of whom simply gapes down at her dinner in sheer amazement and wonder.

"Hm? What're you staring at your food for, Amatsukaze?" Murakumo asks. "It'll get cold if you don't eat it right away, you know."

"...so this is food..." Amatsukaze thinks aloud in picks up her fork and bites into a bit of her bacon, and it is almost as if the air around Amatsukaze is glowing brighter than the light from the campfire itself.

"Don't eat so fast," Damon cautions Amatsukaze, watching her shovel the food into her mouth with a bit of entertainment.

"Er, Admiral, where's yours?" Murakumo asks, a bit concerned as she, too, starts to eat.

"Me? That was the last portion left," Damon says, shrugging and rummaging through his backpack. "I gave it to you two."

Amatsukaze instantly stops with her fork midway into her mouth, and Murakumo, too, freezes.

"...er...you're kidding, right...?" Murakumo stammers.

"I'm not. That was it. I'm gonna have to start grabbin' some of that shitty canned crap from the back of the truck."

Amatsukaze's face is wrought with complicated emotions, and it is clear just by looking at her facade that her heart is torn between her immense satisfaction in her first time ever eating food, at least in a very long time, and her guilt at denying her Admiral of his own dinner. Murakumo feels trapped in the same dilemma as well.

"Th-Then, um...then I-I'll share some with you!" Murakumo blurts out, getting up from her box and sitting down next to Damon. "H-Here..."

"Wait, wait, that's supposed to be my responsibility! Admiral cooked this for me since it's my first dinner, so he should have some of mine!" Amatsukaze speaks up too.

"I mean, we can just split this up three ways, can't we? Here, put some food on the skillet for him," Murakumo insists as she starts to put some of her food onto Damon's skillet, but by this point he can no longer keep up his act and ends up bursting out in laughter, causing both of his ship girls to stare at him in complete wonder.

"Oh God...this is...I can't, I just can't," Damon grins with a grin that a prankster would make after successfully pulling off a great prank. "I have more food, don't worry, take your food back. I was just...I was just lying to you to see what kinda reactions you two would have."

Murakumo punches Damon's right arm again in furious embarrassment.

"Ow!" Damon, who is holding his skillet with his right hand, releases his grip on the handle out of reflex of the sharp pain that shoots up his shoulder, and the skillet clatters onto the decaying asphalt and cement of the highway floor, causing the few contents of the skillet and drops of light cooking oil to fly. Murakumo, who clearly realizes what she has done again too late, simply stares down at the skillet as the color drains from her face faster than a dry sponge absorbing a few drops of water.

"I-I'm...I'm really sorry..." Murakumo utters in a barely audible voice. Damon says nothing as he looks at the bandage patch over his bullet wound, which is again darkened once more from the reopening of the wound, and leans down to pick up the scattered food bits and tosses them back onto the skillet. He turns to Murakumo, who instinctively backs away from him, afraid of what he is going to say to her as Amatsukaze quietly eats her own food awkwardly.

"You gonna eat this?" Damon says with a quick sigh.

"...uh, what?"

"I said, are you going to eat this?"

"...er..."

"I already said I have my own portion that I can cook; I just cooked the two of yours first. I know this's been on the ground, but it's kind of a waste to toss this."

Murakumo wordlessly and hesitantly takes the food from the skillet and drops it on her own plate. "...you're not angry at me?" she mutters.

"No."

"Well, why not?"

"Because it's a waste of effort," Damon says abruptly as he prepares his skillet again to cook his own dinner. "I asked you not to do that earlier today, and you did it again anyway. Clearly, even though you're supposed to be following my orders, you still haven't understood that somehow. I dunno if it's like a command prompt glitch in your system files or somethin' or whatnot, but I can only assume you'll do this again after this. Knowin' that, it's not worth me wasting my energy getting pissed off anymore. Or, even better, I can probably just order you to deactivate yourself if I'm that fed up with your bullshit."

Murakumo eats very slowly, not enjoying her food anywhere near as much as she was before she accidentally punched Damon on the arm for the second time in a row today. The ship girls sit very awkwardly as Damon makes his own dinner, but he has some difficult in doing so as his right arm is still shaking with some pain and having to exert more energy to keep the skillet over the campfire, something Damon has no trouble doing without his injury.

"I-I can hold that for you," Murakumo tries to offer, but Damon shakes his head.

"I'm fine."

"Well...n-no, no you're not. Your arm's shaking..."

"And I wonder why that is. I am fine, Murakumo."

Murakumo falls silent, bitter and guilty at her mishap.

"Couldn't you, like, hold the skillet with your left hand instead of your right?" Amatsukaze points out. "I've noticed that you cook with your left hand managing the food and your right hand holding the pan. Can't you switch?"

"This's how I've taught myself to cook," Damon says. "I'm right handed. I could try, and to be honest that's probably a good idea, but it'll be kinda awkward for me."

Soon, however, Damon eats his own food with no further trouble, and by that time both of the ship girls have already finished their dinners.

"Amy," Damon says after swallowing a bite of his food, "your clothes."

Amatsukaze stares back at him. "What about my clothes?"

"Your shirt's got holes in it 'cause of the bullets you took earlier today. I got some sewing stuff, so I'll fix that for you."

"Um..." Amatsukaze's face again goes red once she realizes what this means. "Y-You idiot, what the hell am I gonna wear, then!?"

Damon gives Amatsukaze a nasty look, the kind of condescendingly irritated look that screams bitch-what-are-you-asking-me.

"I don't have a problem with just letting ya keep those clothes the way they are and never bother ta mend 'em, ever. Soon they'll be so fulla damn holes since both of you are immune to bullets that you'll be fightin' shirtless if you're really okay with that."

"F-Fine, fine, I get it!" Amatsukaze hisses.

"I think I have a spare shirt in here, or maybe a jacket or something. You can just wear that while I'm busy mending your clothes."

Damon quickly finishes his repast, and after cleaning up the plates and skillet, he starts mending the few bullets holes punched in Amatsukaze's shirt by the shots fired by the Merc bandits earlier in the day.

"Do either of you know how to sew?" Damon asks as he pulls on his sewing needle, and both ship girls shake their heads. "I ought'a teach you how so that you girls can fix your own clothes on your own time. We're bound to get into some rough fights down the road, and seein' that you ship girls're pretty much immune to basically anything, do expect me to order you to tank a few shots sometime."

"You do that, and I'll call you a damn scumbag for the rest of the time that you're my Admiral," Amatsukaze glares at Damon.

"But sewing, huh..." Murakumo murmurs. "Did you learn that too? Like cooking?"

"Waddya think? I was an orphan since I was two. I didn't have anyone to teach me how to do shit. The only things I learned how to do from other people were to know where ta take a shit so that I don't piss off the guards 'n break the rules whenever I can to help myself live a slightly better life than the shitty one that most people lived during those days. Everything else, I took the hard way, 'cause there was no other way."

The rest of the time that Damon spends mending Amatsukaze's shirt is spent in silence all the way until he finishes. He stands up after packing away his sewing kit, hands Amatsukaze her shirt back, goes to the back of the truck, and comes back with one of the weapon supply crates to set on the ground next to the brightly burning campfire.

"What's that?" Amatsukaze asks.

"It's one of the three weapon crates we picked up earlier when we got that truck of ours," Murakumo says. "I think that one...does that one hold the big gun, Admiral?"

Damon lifts up the L.S.A.T. light machine gun, albeit with some difficulty due to his shoulder wound. He sits down with it and begins loading one of the giant 200-round belt magazines into the machine gun.

"Alright, listen up," Damon orders with a strict voice. "Tomorrow, after we get some sleep, we're gonna drive south of Atlanta, which you should both already know is one of the six major independent factions of the South. Atlanta's a pretty nasty place - run by some of the biggest douchebags you can imagine. They'll put a bullet in the heads of anyone they don't know or recognize, and if they don't trust you for a second, they'd much rather just kill you on the spot and be done with it. What we're gonna do is drive south of the city to avoid getting into direct contact with any of those assholes runnin' around up there. Instead, we'll take a detour to Macon, and we'll continue to Charleston from there. Got it?"

Murakumo and Amatsukaze nod.

"I'm gonna use this machine gun here and the DSR sniper. Murakumo, I'm giving you my Rogue Chassis. Amatsukaze'll stick with the AA-12 that I gave her earlier. If you see anyone suspicious, you let me know. If they shoot at us at all, you waste 'em if you've got a shot. That clear? Good."

Damon slaps down the cover of the belt feed mechanism of the L.S.A.T.

"Lemme ask, neither of your GPS's work right now, do they?"

Both of them shake their heads. "We keep getting a no signal...the satellites in orbit must either be offline or in need of repair," Murakumo muses.

"The nukes probably destroyed a lot of them," Damon nods. "If there's still a few operational ones out there, their signals're probably gettin' blocked by the radiation clouds or the debris clouds or something...I don't know the exact details. But it'd be more convenient for us if we ever find out if there's a couple, even one that we can try to salvage somehow so that you girls can start using your GPS's. But that'll be a plan for another day..."


	10. A Perfect Anarchy

"So you said it's okay for me to shoot anyone with a gun?" Murakumo shouts into her mic, making sure Damon hears her over the high-speed winds that she is subjected to from the truck going at over a hundred miles an hour. She is riding on top of the utility truck canopy as usual, prone, this time armed with Damon's MK-14 Rogue Chassis, accompanied by Amatsukaze, who cocks back the charging handle of Murakumo's AK-47. The noon sun is shining brightly through the hazy apocalyptic clouds

"Anyone you see with a gun, yeah! If they even so far as point those things at us, you pick 'em off, understand? Thirty seconds!"

Murakumo and Amatsukaze spy the slowly enlarging barricaded checkpoint and ready their firearms. Once they draw closer, they acquire their targets.

"Two in front of the barricade, armed!" Murakumo reports. "So much for trying to avoid these guys, Admiral!"

"If you want me to drive straight through Atlanta instead, I'm more than happy to do that! Ten seconds!"

The armed guards, seeing the truck hurtle towards them at an alarmingly breakneck speed, raise their guns. However, Murakumo and Amatsukaze simultaneously fire off a bullet each, and the two guards drop their weapons and topple over. Before they can hit the floor of the highway, Damon ducks underneath the wheel, and the two ship girls cover their faces with their weapons. The truck bursts through the lightly reinforced barricade on the highway with a spectacular crash, sending wood splinters and scraps of metal everywhere on Eisenhower Parkway.

"You girls okay?" Damon calls, straightening himself and quickly brushing away the debris that entered the cabin of the truck through the broken front window, which Damon had removed the previous night because the shattered glass would obstruct his view.

"Yeah, we're fine!" Murakumo calls, plucking out a large wood splinter from her hair. "But it'd be nice if we could get a shower soon!"

"We're driving right through enemy territory, and you're bitchin' 'bout gettin' a shower?" Damon roars. "Girl, what the hell is wrong with you!"

The truck continues its frenzied run down the highway.

"Are either of you picking up anything outta the ordinary? Like a concentration of bio readings or vehicular activity?" Damon asks, the Westgate Mall Shopping Center ruins pulling up into view.

"Picking up audio traces of gunshots towards the north!" Amatsukaze reports.

"Same here," Murakumo confirms, "lots of small-arms fire occurring further north. What should we do?"

"We're gonna investigate it," Damon asserts. "There's two ways across the Ocmulgee River up ahead, and the only reason why there's gunfire is 'cause most likely, the people runnin' this place're tryin' to put down a rebellion or something. I've seen this kinda thing before..."

Taking a left onto Interstate 75, Damon swerves the truck and almost drifts it to maintain as much speed as possible to avoid taking fire from potential snipers like earlier. Soon, the gunshots come within audible range, and Damon, slowing the truck, peers at the location from where the gunshots are coming.

"Hang on, I'm taking us up above onto the highway just over us!" Damon pulls the truck onto the on-ramp to change highways to Highway 74 and stops the truck just off the ramp. This gives a perfect vantage point overlooking the Mercer University campus grounds, where the gunshots are coming from. Damon opens the driver-side truck door and hops out with his light machine gun on his back and his sniper rifle in his hands, flips down the bipod of the sniper rifle, and sets it on the side of the highway. Murakumo and Amatsukaze jump down from the truck, and Damon tosses Amatsukaze the pair of binoculars.

"Amatsukaze, use these binos to spot enemies for us. Murakumo, you can toggle the sight on that thing to zoom in. I'd say this is about a two or three hundred meter shot, depending on where we find our targets."

As Damon quickly shows Murakumo how to switch zoom levels on the CRS-468 sight, Amatsukaze peers through the binoculars down at the university grounds.

"There're a lot of people running around in the parking lots," she reports. "Some of them are hiding behind those derelict school buses, and some of them are closer to us."

Amatsukaze hands the binos back to Damon, who quickly peers down at the parking lots. He can see a group of well-armed militiamen with M-16 assault rifle variants firing at another group of younger teenagers, who are much worse armed and desperately fighting back with Molotov cocktails and pistols and a scrappy civilian assault rifle here or there.

"Ready up, Murakumo," Damon orders, returning the binos to Amatsukaze, and Murakumo snaps down the built-in bipod of Damon's marksman rifle and sets it down on the side of the highway like Damon's DSR-50 sniper rifle. "We're gonna hit those guys closer to us. Do not engage the people hiding behind the buses. Understood?"

"Roger that," Murakumo nods, putting her finger on the trigger mechanism.

"Give it to 'em."

The thunderous boom of Damon's fifty-caliber sniper rifle is followed almost immediately by a small implosion of the head of one of the attacking men, and the sharp crack of the MK-14 Rogue Chassis rips off the left arm of another man.

"Two down!" Amatsukaze confirms the kills, watching the body of the decapitated man splat against the ground and twitch erratically in death. The armless man slumps against one of the run-down cars he was taking cover behind, wailing out in pain and entering shock, staring at his dismembered limb in horror. Damon and Murakumo manage to fire off another volley that shreds through another two men before their remaining comrades realize that they are being flanked and divert their fire towards them. Damon and Murakumo duck for cover as bullets snap over them.

"Amy, give them suppressing fire!" Damon yells, and Amatsukaze swiftly pops her head out over the side of the highway and squeezes off a couple shots, not hitting anyone but scaring the attackers into ceasing fire for a moment. Murakumo uses that brief ceasefire to emerge, acquire another target, and hit a clean headshot with a single bullet before ducking for cover again in time to dodge the next volley of incoming shots. Soon, however, the volume of incoming fire dies down quickly soon after it started.

"I'm hearing more shots from beyond our attackers' position," Murakumo reports. "Those other people must be moving in on them!"

Damon peers over. Sure enough, the surviving teenagers are closing in on the attackers, whose numbers are significantly thinned out. One of the boys lights his last Molotov cocktail and hurls it perfectly right at the feet of one of the attacking bandits, and it bursts into a ball of deadly flame and engulfs the man in the jaws of damning fire. His comrades dive away to avoid getting swallowed by the flames and briefly watch him squirm and writhe horribly as his body is cooked to death before trying to fight off the teenagers, but with only the two of them remaining against the group of nine teenagers, they, too, are dispatched easily and without difficulty.

"Cease fire," Damon says quickly as the teenagers cheer over their victory. "Let's go down and meet 'em...see what's up."

* * *

Damon drives the truck down to the university parking lot to meet with the teenage boys and girls they had helped. One of them, a nineteen-year-old boy wearing a bandana, armed with a simple Beretta M-9 pistol, approaches the utility truck as Damon hops out again and holds out his hand.

"'Sup dude, I'm Chad. You guys really helped us out here, thanks a bunch."

"I'm Damon." Damon looks around, inspecting the group of young men and women either his age or slightly older as Murakumo and Amatsukaze bring up the rear. A motley of boys and girls of all sorts of nationalities come to see and greet the people who helped them.

"You guys got like a leader among you?" Damon asks, and Chad points at himself.

"That'll be me, buddy."

"Then tell me what's goin' on, 'cause we're tryin' to reach the coast and we have to pass through town first to do that."

Chad frowns. "The coast? I don't recommend that, but I'll explain why later, 'cause we got a situation."

"Then let us in on it."

"Alright," Chad beams and motions over to the university grounds. "See this? A couple 'a years ago, those fuckers over in Atlanta decided to turn Mercer Uni into some sorta holding compound for guys 'n girls like us. Anyone our age, from like, let's say from fifteen to twenty, that they find and capture get sent here. From here, dudes from all over the South come here, and we get auctioned off to them."

Damon glares at him. "What, like fuckin' slaves?"

"Damn right, dude! They've brought back fuckin' slavery. And this time around, they don't give two shits if they sell off blacks, Asians, whites, Indians, whatever! Kids our age, not one of us are safe if they live anywhere near here."

"We've even heard that they've been sending bandit raids outside the area to see if they can drag more teens over here," one girl with a large bandage patch over her cheek says, holding a Colt .38 Special.

Damon shakes his head. "Hey, I knew those guys were assholes, but I didn't expect slavery to be back in full force..."

Chad smiles darkly. "Hey, just look at us. Everyone here - we've all been just chattle for the past couple months. Some of us have even been stuck here for a year, maybe two years. It's fucking ridiculous."

"So I'm assuming you broke out? You had some sorta rebellion?"

"Hell yeah, dude! We ain't gonna just sit around rottin' or ending up working our asses off for some fuckin' douchebag slob! We gonna bust some skulls or die trying, you know? We busted out a few weeks ago - some of our boys overheard the guards talkin' about a weapons shipment they had to bring here for a night 'cause they didn't have anywhere else to store it, so we snuck in and hijacked it and gave everyone guns and took over. But they've been sending down people to shut us down, but see, their problem's that they don't know this place, while we do. Pays to be holed up in a shithole like this 'til we call this home."

Chad smirks, then laughs.

"Fuckers don't know what hit 'em, straight up. But hey, since you're friendly 'n all, can I ask you to help us out just one more time?"

Damon crosses his arms. "We got our own agenda here, and it's nice we ended up helping you all, but we gotta run. What is it?"

The young man scratches his head. "Well see...just before we kicked out those douchebags, they took some of our guys over to another place and locked 'em up in a building across the river. You know about the Coliseum Medical Center?"

Damon nods.

"Yeah, they're being held there. We'd been plannin' on storming across and getting our guys out, but it's been too risky. We've tried, but the guys we sent barely got out alive. Our main problem is this shit we've been using." Chad motions at his pistol. "I mean, the best guns we've got are a couple AK's and maybe an M4 with a red dot. While you..." Chad's eyes peer with excitement at the menacing fifty-caliber bolt-action sniper rifle strapped to Damon's back, "...you've got 'em big guns. You could help us out. You're the only ones who can, since there ain't no one with balls quite as big as yours to drive through and help us like you did."

"Well, for starters, you could just loot the guys we took out," Damon points at the dead bodies surrounding them. Chad jumps a little, as if the notion had never hit him.

"Oh! Yeah...um...guys, just take whatever you want from these guys," Chad instructs hastily, and his comrades hurriedly begin to loot whatever weapons and ammunition they can off the corpses. While they are occupied with that, Chad draws closer to Damon.

"Hey, man...there's another reason why I want your help. You gotta listen to me."

Damon, too, draws nearer. "Okay, then what?"

"One of the people we're tryin' to save...my girl's in there. Kassia's in there."

"Is Kassia your girlfriend?"

"Yeah. She was one of the people they took just before we took over the place. I swore I'd save her, but never got the chance, and we're running out of time. I'm really fucking worried, you know? It might already be too late, but I'm just hoping to God she's still alive."

Damon scratches his head. "I guess I don't have a choice. There're only three ways across the Ocmulgee, and I'm assuming you guys know them better than we do. We'll give you a hand, since we need to cross too."

Chad's eyes light up. "Holy shit, man, thanks a bunch! Now, we can - "

A walkie-talkie on Chad's belt erupts with loud chatter, and a scratchy voice screams out.

_"Chad, Chad! Muthafuckin' Chad, you hear me, my nigga?! We got more 'a 'em cocksucka's comin' down the parkin' lot west 'a da baseball field!"_

Hastily grabbing his walkie-talkie and pushing the talk button, Chad yells back into it, "Which baseball field? There's two, ya know!"

_"The - The...ah, shieeet, nigga...the Claude Smith one, yea, dat's it! We takin' crack shots out here, maaaan! Gitcha asses over here 'fore we all get our asses fucked!"_

"My buds're in trouble," Chad says quickly to Damon, slapping his walkie-talkie back onto his torn jeans waist. "Follow me, we need to help 'em. Guys, c'mon, we gotta go, Dee Jay and his crew's gettin' shot up!"

Damon retrieves his light machine gun from the truck, and the defenders, now armed with military-grade assault rifles and ammo, rush across the street to enter the next parking lot just north of them, and already bullets are beginning to whizz past. Damon sees another small group of teens, the most conspicuous of which is a gruff-looking black man who looks more like a UFC fighter than an average eighteen-year-old teenager. Damon also notes that he has a goofy but fierce-looking grin on his face at all times. The reinforcements quickly take cover behind the masses of rusted metal hulks that used to be cars.

"'bout muthafuckin' time, my nigga!" the black man, presumably Dee Jay, laughs as Chad puts his back next to the same car as his. "Listen up good, bud. We got cocksucka's over there, there, 'n there," Dee Jay points in the general direction of the enemies. "They be comin' in three different groups, ya hear me? 'Bout like a dozen of 'em in total. I saw 'em fucka's on the left move dat'a way. They gonna try 'n flank us, so we need peeps over there to watch out for 'em, got it?"

"Hey, you three!" Chad hollers over the sporadic gunfire. "Move that way and watch for flankers!" Three of his comrades hurry off to their left to watch their flank behind a big trailer truck. Damon, listening in on their conversation, lifts his light machine gun, emerges from his cover, and fires in the general direction of the attackers with a steady stream of suppressing fire. The fearsome chugging of the machine gun alarms the attackers into submission, and the volume of incoming fire almost immediately evaporates.

"Wat da fuck? Chad, you know dis dude?" Dee Jay points at Damon, who is still standing and squeezing off caseless rounds steadily to preserve ammunition.

"Yeah, dude, he helped us out over at the other parking lot! C'mon, everyone, shoot 'em up while he's suppressing 'em!"

The defenders emerge from their cover and begin pummeling the enemy positions with a wall of their own lead. However, both sides are well protected by the masses of scrap metal lying all over the parking lot - even if the bullets rip through one layer of metal, many more layers lie behind them to stop the bullets from ever reaching anyone.

"Murakumo, Amy!" Damon yells, still pulling the trigger of his L.S.A.T. one bullet at a time, the electronic ammunition counter on the side of the machine gun reading 136 and counting down one by one. "Move in for us! Murakumo, you cover Amy while she gets in there and shotguns everyone, understand? Go, go!"

The two ship girls rush straight towards the entrenched enemies towards the north side of the parking lot under the cover of Damon's deadly and accurate suppressing fire, which has caused the enemies to not fire a single bullet for fear they might accidentally catch a machine gun bullet somehow. Murakumo, flattening her back against a large wreck of a school bus, motions forward to Amatsukaze.

"I'll stay here, move up!"

Murakumo, now having a better angle at the attacking bandits, opens fire with Damon's MK-14 Rogue Chassis and downs three men before being forced to withdraw to avoid getting shot. But this has distracted them from noticing Amatsukaze, who slinks sneakily among the piles of derelict vehicles and flanks a particularly large group of six men. With Murakumo's AK-47 in her left hand and the AA-12 automatic shotgun in her right, Amatsukaze lays waste to them all before they can even turn around to see what is hitting them and quickly dashes away before the comrades of the men she has killed can return fire. At this point, the three defenders on the left flank have already slain the small group of men trying to flank Chad's small army, and with them dead, the leader of the teenage army sends some of his comrades forward to close in on their attackers while Murakumo climbs on top of the school bus and pummels the remaining enemies further with DMR fire. Right as the teen soldiers safely lodge themselves in their new pieces of cover, they hear a dreadful scream of pain and the whoosh of the ignition of fire, and Chad and Dee Jay see a flying body that has been sent on fire, punched in the chin by Amatsukaze and slapping against the ground some thirty meters away, burning to death.

"Da fuck, I can handle flyin' bullets, but flyin' bodies on fire?" Dee Jay shakes his head. "Dayum. Maybe 'em nukes be droppin' again."

"Er, yo, Damon, what the hell are those girls doin'?" Chad asks hesitantly.

"Don't worry about it," Damon replies coolly, lowering his light machine gun and checking his ammunition count. "They should be wrapping this up now."

The bandits now begin to flee, trying to retreat to minimize their losses, but Chad's friends strike them down as they run away, and only one or two manage to escape their fire. Murakumo does not let them live, however, as she picks them off easily from her elevated position on top of the school bus.

"Hostiles eliminated," Murakumo reports to Damon, remembering to click on the safety.

"Chad, I'm going to bring my truck over here," Damon says. "We're going to load those weapons that the guys we killed dropped and distribute it to your guys. Afterwards, I'll need you to give me information on the three bridges crossing the river."

* * *

Chad and Dee Jay lead Damon and his ship girls to their headquarters at the Macon University Center after distributing the stolen weapons to more of Chad's comrades.

"So how many people you got?" Damon asks, looking around the University Center. Young men and women, ranging from the ages of fifteen-ish to twenty-ish, can be seen resting, some lying down on beds or couches recuperating from gunshot wounds. Others are playing card games or sleeping.

"This place held around a thousand or so of us when we took over," Chad says as Dee Jay fistbumps one of his friends passing by. "Over the last few weeks, we lost a lot from fighting...now we're floating around six hundred posted around the university grounds. We ain't got a lot of medical supplies, much less do we have very many people who know how to use 'em to begin with," he adds grimly, glancing at the wounded. "These guys...I don't wanna say this, but they ain't got much time left. Not when you've been shot in the gut or something..."

They enter the makeshift headquarters that has been furnished out of the cafeteria.

"...why is your HQ located in the cafeteria?" Murakumo wonders aloud.

"Baby, it's 'cuz this place can't be bombed out!" Dee Jay laughs. "Jus' look, will ya? Walls on three sides. Ain't no way in but the front. This place's a fortress by itself, girl."

They sit down on rickety chairs and a desk that seems like it will collapse at any moment. Chad retrieves a foldier labeled messily, "Bridge Access", and sits down as well. Damon notices that the back of the headquarters is surprisingly very well organized with what appear to be folders and binders filled with papers and notes.

"We had some of our guys go out and take pictures of the bridges," Chad says, opening the folders and sliding a few messily-developed photographs to Damon, who examines them. He manages to make out the heavily guarded barricades set up across the bridges, restricting all traffic passing over the Ocmulgee River. "I also sent some guys to spy on 'em for a few days, and this is what we know." Chad also passes a piece of paper to Damon, who reads it thoroughly.

"So the bridge on Highway 80 is the least defended, if I'm reading this right," Damon remarks. "Guards shift every three hours...gun emplacements, barbed wire, your standard conventional barricade shit."

"Yup," Chad nods.

"And you're sayin' you don't have shit to attack 'em with."

"Nope."

Damon looks at the photos and the information for a few minutes in silence.

"Like, we been tryin' ta come up with some shit to bust through," Dee Jay explains. "Obviously jus' throwin' bodies at 'em ain't gonna fuckin' work. We tried night raids, but that fuckin' failed like shit, 'n afterwards they installed 'em nightlights on the bridges in case we tried that shit again. The river ain't too bad to swim in, ya'll still live - but thing is, they see you, they shoot ya straight outta da water like they're fuckin' fly fishin', ya know?"

"We're bombing the place out," Damon concludes quietly, pushing the photos and paper back to Chad, who takes them while gaping at him.

"Bombing? Bro, what the hell are you talkin' about? We only got small arms like rifles 'n pistols 'n shit. Where the hell are we gonna get bombs from? Does your truck have 'em, 'cause we as sure ain't gonna have anythin' to make 'em with."

Damon grins like a fiend. "You've never heard of or read the Anarchist's Cookbook?"

"Anarchist's Cookbook? That sounds like something we'd need right the fuck now."

Damon taps his head. "And it's all in here. I memorized that shit. I'll give you a list of things I need, and a university like this's bound to have 'em."

Dee Jay holds out his hands, as if motioning to Damon to calm down. "Whoa, whoa, my nigga, my nigga! We gon' blow shit up? Ya kiddin' me? Say it ain't so, brah!"

"It is." Damon leans back in his rickety chair. "Alright, listen. Chad, go and get five people who can work to make explosives - preferably ones who aren't stupid, too. Last thing we want is someone blowin' themselves up."


	11. The Vulture and the Mines

After some eight hours of painstakingly and agitatingly slow work, Damon, assisted by a large posse of Chad's friends and his two shipgirls, have managed to produce four improvised explosive devices, containing the home-brewed packs of nitroglycerin that has been manufactured from chemicals supplies in the university's chemical storage.

"Shieeeet...so tomorrow, yer sayin' we kin blow 'em bridges to all hell?" Dee Jay whistles.

"Two bridges," Damon says. He, Murakumo, Amatsukaze, Chad, and Damon are standing around the table in the science lab rooms of Mercer University, staring at the I.E.D.'s sitting innocently on the table. "We're leaving one of 'em standing so we can cross."

"And which one's dat?"

Damon stares at Dee Jay. "Highway 80, dude. It's the least defended, didn't I say that already?"

"Oh, right..."

Murakumo crosses her arms. "But how the heck were there even supplies to make nitroglycerin, anyway? Those components are extremely unstable, to say the least, and we just come across some random school and they just so happen to be there, ready to be used? If the world's been in a post-apocalyptic state for nearly the past two decades, how were those things still even preserved?"

"I can explain that," Chad jumps in. "I mentioned they used this place to keep us folks to sell off as slaves, but they also used this place to store chemicals to bring into the big city. Atlanta, in case ya don't know what I'm talkin' about. You hear that whirrin'?"

Chad points up to the air, and everyone listens. Indeed, there is a faint but clearly loud whirr of an engine running somewhere on campus.

"That's the big ol' generator they installed here to provide power to the storage area. That's why all the chems're all nice 'n good to go."

Amatsukaze laughs. "You sure got lucky, Admiral," she nudges Damon playfully.

"Luck?" Damon glances at her. "Believe it or not, schools are actually a great place to go loot chemicals like this to make IED's. Even if the chemicals are decomposed after not being used for so long or not havin' been kept properly, I can still use 'em to make things explode. Not as safe, but still gets the job done." He turns to Murakumo. "And I'll have you know, this ain't the first time."

"Huh? First time what?" Murakumo asks.

"Making bombs with shady chemicals."

"That worries me. Like, a lot."

"It shouldn't. I should be paid for it, in fact." Damon clears his throat. "Okay, time to lay out the plans for tomorrow."

Chad rolls the biggest map of the area he could find out on the HQ's desk.

"Like I said yesterday, judging from the maps and info ya got, the Highway 80 bridge is the least defended, so we'll manually take that over in order to cross," Damon plans, pointing at the map. "These other two bridges, we'll take down. Here's how it's gonna go down: tonight, I'll use the cover of nightfall to get to those bridges, climb underneath 'em, and plant two bombs on each bridge. Tomorrow - "

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're gonna _what!?"_ Chad nearly yells.

"I said, I'll plant the charges tonight underneath the bridges so that they can't be seen," Damon repeats with a noticeable trace of irritation at being cut off like that. "Tomorrow, I want anyone you got with a good shot grab a gun from the guys we killed earlier today and come with us to the bridges. I'll set off the IEDs, and that'll be the cue to open fire. What I'm hoping will happen is that the bridges that we blow up will collapse straight down into the river 'cause they haven't been properly maintained in such a long time so that we only have to worry about the guys on the Highway 80 bridge. Once we secure the the bridge, we bring in reinforcements and head straight for the Medical Center."

Chad scratches his head. "Well...you sure, man?"

"What, do you have something better in mind?"

"Well, no, it's just - " Chad sighs. "Look, I didn't expect ya to actually go out there yourself 'n plant these things."

"So were you thinking we'd just throw them all willy-nilly and hope they'd explode in a few people's faces?"

"Agggh, you know what, forget it, I don't know what we'd do with 'em. So now what, you want me to get people to fight, right?"

"That'd be nice, yeah. I don't know how many men we need to kill, but the more the better."

"And when will you go out 'n install the bombs?"

"Right now." Damon takes the IED's and places them carefully and neatly into his backpack, whose contents Damon already put away in his truck for this purpose. "Murakumo, Amy, follow me. We'll be back in an hour or so, Chad."

Chad nods. "Just don't blow yourself up, 'k?"

Damon waves it off, and the three of them exit the university center and start heading towards the bridges. Before they exit the school grounds under the watchful eye of guards that Chad had placed around the perimeter of the school, Damon stops his two ship girls.

"Alright, listen, you two. This's gonna be a stealth mission. You ain't done one of these things before, but here's what I'll need you to do. First, _do not shoot_ unless it's to save me. We don't have suppressed weapons, so there's no way we'll be able to fire a shot without wakin' up everyone and their goddamn mothers and gettin' away with it. I'm only bringing my Glock, and Murakumo has her Desert Eagle, if I'm not mistaken..."

Damon nods as Murakumo shows him her ornately decorated Desert Eagle in a makeshift holster that Damon made for her.

"Second, we're doing this completely silent. Only silent melee kills are allowed, understand? And Amy, don't set anyone on fire, it'll give away our position."

Amatsukaze pouts. "Damn."

"Last thing: when we reach the bridges, I want you two to get down to the river and stand beneath my position so that in case I do fall, I don't fall right into the river and make a loud splash for God almighty to hear. Now, this can only work if you can walk on water. Can you do that?"

"Well, of course we can walk on water," Murakumo says, a bit flabbergasted. "We're ship girls, for fuck's sake. We aren't submarines!"

"Then that's all I need to know. Let's get going."

"Hey, how'd you know we can walk on water?" Amatsukaze asks him.

"I know the basics of what you ship girls can do, courtesy of a certain scientist buddy of mine who worked on you girls," Damon smirks, flipping out his karambit blade. "Let's get going, I wanna get some sleep for tomorrow."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them slip through the shadows of night into the ruins of the former Grand Opera House of Macon City. The ceiling has collapsed after years of disuse and lack of maintenance and weather, and looters and bandits have stripped the building of anything valuable. Only rubble, bricks, and other pieces of debris greet Damon as he slips inside, with Murakumo and Amatsukaze slinking in soon after.

"This is strange," Amatsukaze whispers, readjusting her Ignition Glove. "Chad and his friend Dee Jay said that we might run into a lot of guards on our way here. Why haven't we even seen a single one? Neither Murakumo nor I've picked up any vital signs of humans nearby either."

Damon shrugs. "Ain't our problem, better for us. But there's sure to be bogies on the bridges themselves, and if we're gonna find anyone, it'll be closer to our objective. It's always like that."

Damon peers around the corners of the broken entrance of the ruins of the opera house. He glances back at his ship girls again.

"And always remember: Murphy's Law."

Murakumo and Amatsukaze stare at him. "What's that?" they ask almost in unison.

"An arbitrary law that states that whatever _can_ go wrong, _will_ go wrong."

Murakumo snorts loudly and slaps her face with her palm. "What kind of a stupid law is that?"

"Hey, hey. I understand if you two can't grasp arbitrary things like that, since in the end you're just computers. But - "

"Just computers? What the hell's with that tone?" Amatsukaze also glares at him.

"Because you are, so deal with it. All I'm saying is to be prepared to get caught up in the worst scenario you can imagine, 'cause in times like this, worst-case scenarios are more likely than you think. Now follow me - parking lot's clear."

They quickly make their way to the parking lot behind the opera house and reach Walnut Street. Before they get off the parking lot, Murakumo hisses, "Contact detected, southeast!"

Damon quickly snaps his Glock 37 in a pistol-and-knife stance, his left hand gripping his karambit, down Walnut street, and he sees multiple flashlights zipping here and there.

"Follow me, and stay quiet!" Damon hisses back, and they hurry silently into a nearby dry-cleaners store that, too, has been looted down to its bare furnishings.

"As if we haven't stayed quiet this entire time..." Murakumo mutters as they secure themselves inside the dry cleaners. Damon gives her the stinkeye as he puts his backpack against the wall, tucked safely away from any potential crossfire in case of a firefight.

"Looks like they're coming down this way," Damon reports, ducking away just in time before the flashlights reveal his position. "Alright, listen up. We're going to ambush these guys here and take whatever guns they've got so we can give 'em to the boys back at the uni." He looks around the shop with his morphed black pupils, allowing him night vision, and points at the back of the shop.

"You two, up the hatch. I want you two to jump 'em from the roof. Can you climb that?"

Amatsukaze and Murakumo nod and jump up to grab the ledge of the hatch that leads up to the roof of the dry cleaners. Normally, the height would render such an effort impossible for a normal human, but because Amatsukaze and Murakumo are ship girls, their tremendous strength allows them to jump easily to the open hatch and scramble onto the roof. They lie in wait, watching the flashlights come closer.

_"Silent takedowns only. You two, look around on the rooftops. Something up there that you can grab 'n throw to make a distraction?"_

The ship girls do as they are told. "Yeah, there's a lot of bottles here for some reason," Amatsukaze whispers, keeping her voice low.

_"Grab two bottles each. When I say so, I want you to toss 'em out across the street so their attention is furthest away from me."_

Equipping themselves with two such glass bottles that once held alcohol, consumed by humans long deceased who have drunk to ease the pain of their deaths, Murakumo and Amatsukaze wait for Damon's signal.

_"Toss 'em."_

The glass bottles go hurtling over the five-man patrol and shatter alarmingly on the sidewalk, and like magic, the bright flashlights flip towards the direction of the sounds of smashing glass. The second volley of flying bottles get launched as Damon mantles the broken window of the dry cleaners shop, his karambit blade poised to strike, and right when the second pair of glass bottles shatter against the ground, Damon already covers the distance and synchronizes his attack with the cover of the shattering glass, his karambit blade sinking into the skull of the closest man he can reach. At the same time, Murakumo and Amatsukaze, having jumped immediately from the roof after throwing their second set of bottles, pounce on their respective victims. Amatsukaze balls her gloved right fist and brings it down like a sledgehammer onto her target's head, splitting his skull in half. Murakumo, after landing on her own victim, quickly bends down, grabs the bandit's head, and pulls, snapping his neck with an equally loud crack. All three of their victims were the ones holding the flashlights, which are dropped onto the ground, clattering loudly. The other two men, confused and virtually scared shitless at all the shattering glass, snaps and crunching of bone, and chokes and gurgles from their dying comrades, begin firing wildly, and Damon, anticipating this, protects himself with the corpse of the man he has stabbed. A pistol bullet that would have struck Damon in the gut instead lodges itself into the dead bandit's intestines, and Murakumo catches a few pellets from a shotgun blast in her left arm and neck before subduing him. Amatsukaze, too, takes down the last man.

"Take the guns and ammo off these assholes," Damon orders urgently, ripping his karambit knife out of his victim's head and letting his body slap against the cracked asphalt before kneeling down and stripping him of his gear. "You girls alright? No one catch a bullet?"

"I took a few small hits," Murakumo reports. "I don't know what that guy shot me with...it felt like it shot out a lot of bullets at once."

"A shotgun?" Damon's eyes light up somehow, even though his pupils are black and blend in with the surrounding darkness, minus the flashlights. "Sweet. Take it and give it to me once we get to somewhere safe."

They work quickly, equipping their victims' gear, turning off the flashlights, and leaving the bodies to bleed on the broken street before sneaking back into the dry cleaners shop, away from the scene of the crime.

"Lemme see what we got real quick before we move on," Damon says after they gather in the back room of the shop. "This dude only had a combat knife. A good knife, but it ain't a gun. I also grabbed the dude's walkie-talkie. Oh, plus another nearly full pack of strawberry cigarettes, so that alone makes this shit worth it, heh."

"I picked up this pistol and this thing," Murakumo lays her scavenged weapons on the floor, a silenced Sig Sauer P-226 equipped with an undermounted tactical flashlight with three magazines and what appears to be a Remington Model 870 Express Super Mag pump action shotgun with a pouch containing sixteen .12 gauge pellet shells. However, Amatsukaze lays down a small array of weaponry that really catches Damon's eye: an H&K MP-7 submachine gun with two magazines, a half-full box of mint Tic-Tacs, and three flashbang grenades.

"Now what the fuckin' hell are these scrubs doing with flashbangs?" Damon wonders aloud as he picks them up to inspect them. All three flashbangs appear to be in good condition to be used.

"Flashbangs?" Murakumo asks, unfamiliar with the term.

"They're equipment that if you pull the pin on them, you have a couple seconds to toss 'em before they blow up and blind and deafen everyone within a certain effective radius. If you're close enough to 'em, they can also blow off a limb or two depending on how strong they are and depending on their make 'n model 'n such. Usually only the military has shit like this. The SMG I can understand...but flashbangs?" Damon shakes his head, giving up on wracking his brain trying to figure out the dilemma.

"So we need to carry this back," Amatsukaze asks.

"Yes, we are, but we'll use 'em if it'll save our lives. Also, if we run across other people who have better gear, we're gonna do that. But only if we get the chance, like now. Amy, use the MP-7. Murakumo, you use the silenced P-226. That silencer is also a flash suppressor, so you can shoot it and have a much better chance getting away with it, but don't fire it excessively. I'll take this shotgun..." Damon picks up the shotgun and inserts another pellet into it, smiling at it with subtle excitement.

"You've got the look of someone who's planning on blasting the first person you see," Amatsukaze mutters, and Murakumo nods gravely.

"Don't worry, I'm not a dumbass," Damon assures them. "This is only for some overkill self-defense. And if I think there's a son of a bitch whose head really needs a shell fulla buckshot."

"Hopefully that's not either of _us_," Murakumo chuckles.

Then, Damon's stolen walkie-talkie buzzes loudly, causing the two ship girls to jump in fright. Damon quickly grabs it and lowers the volume before a raspy voice erupts from the walkie-talkie's speaker.

_"Yo, bumhead, where are you? Keepin' tabs here."_

"Walnut Street, heading northwest," Damon says calmly_._ No reply at first, but then the voice answers back,

_"Awwwwrighty...you jus' keep doin' that, son..."_

And it shuts off. Damon stands up quickly, giving the walkie-talkie to Murakumo.

"Keep this on you," he says as he throws on his backpack again and carrying the shotgun.

"Why?"

"Because if that thing goes off while it's right next to my backpack..." Damon warns, and he makes a hand gesture indicating a bomb exploding.

"It's going to set off the bombs?" Amatsukaze cocks her head, very confused. "How's that work?"

"You didn't watch us make the bombs, but the fuse for these IEDs are old cellphones that we managed to wire up and make work again. Chad has the detonator with him, and in case anything happens, I've made it so that it can't be used for another twelve hours...which is tomorrow morning. We set it off, it'll call the phones on the IED's, and that'll detonate our bombs. That walkie-talkie - " Damon points at it, which is now in Murakumo's hands - "is basically a second remote detonator, and these bombs don't give two flying fucks what sets 'em off. Let's go, the bridges' only like five or ten minutes away..."

They sneak out of the dry-cleaners and slink between the neighboring run-down buildings to reach Rotary Park, which is no longer a park and is instead a field of dead grass and dirt and a few broken pieces of what used to be swing sets for children. Damon notices another group of flashlights shining on the bridge and approaching the street.

"This way," Damon whispers, and they get away from the park and hide among the dead brush and vegetation along the river to avoid detection. Damon, Murakumo, and Amatsukaze watch the flashlights saunter away.

"They're goin' down the direction we came from," Damon murmurs, noting their patrol pattern. "They know that something's happened to that patrol group we ambushed."

"How do you know that? It could just be coincidence," Murakumo whispers back as the flashlights begin to fade away into the street away from them.

"When I talked to that guy over the walkie-talkie, he talked in a real rash tone. But when I talked, he changed his tone real fast...like he was talkin' to someone he didn't know. They know someone's attackin'."

"What, and you just...have some kind of feeling? I don't get you, Admiral," Amatsukaze shakes her head.

Damon shrugs. "Humans have this thing called intuition. You ship girls, being constructed with high optimization for computer-based senses and judgment within a human body system, might not have it right away. But the fact 'a the matter's that you have human bodies. Maybe you don't get it now...but as you keep living, you might come to get it."

"Another really vague answer..." Amatsukaze rolls her eyes. "Everything should be defined and clear-cut."

"Yeah...well, as much as I'd want the same my own life as well, the world just says 'fuck you' to everyone." Damon notices the wounds on Murakumo's upper left arm along her biceps and some pellet wounds on her cheek. "Does that hurt, Murakumo?"

"Huh?" Murakumo wipes off a bit of blood that briefly popped out from the small bullet holes from the pellets she was struck by. "No, not really. Well...they hurt at first, but it goes away. This is nothing, they don't feel any different if you were to pull on my cheek."

Damon wipes away some of the blood that has dripped down lightly on her cheek and wipes the stray blood off on his pants. He motions for his ship girls to follow him down to the riverbank, and they sneak their way over to one of the creaking foundation pillars at the entrance of the bridge.

"Like I thought, it's not in any good condition to be used," Damon says, inspecting the condition of the bridge. "It might hold up for a max of like, another year, but it can't take much longer, especially if those douchebags use them constantly. This bridge, anyway." He kneels down, takes off his backpack, and fetches two of the IED's. Zipping the backpack up, he hands it to Amatsukaze, telling her to keep the other bombs safe.

"Murakumo, get out in the river and follow my progress. Just make sure I don't splash into the river in case I fall," Damon repeats his order as he begins to climb up the pillar without any climbing gear, the explosive devices hooked onto his belt. Murakumo, who steps out onto the water and walks on it without any problems, frowns as her shoes come into contact with the murky water.

"This water...ugh, it makes me sick even embarking like this..." she complains bitterly but quietly, walking slowly and deliberately out onto the dirtied river. Amatsukaze watches Damon with worry as he scales the pillar and shimmies his way slowly underneath the bridge.

"Hey, Admiral, that...that doesn't look safe at _all..._" Amatsukaze mumbles, Damon continuing his precarious journey over to the middle of the river on the underside of the bridge, Murakumo following his progress directly underneath him.

"I'm perfectly okay with admitting this idea ain't smart, nor is it safe by any means," he replies simply, his breath becoming strained with more and more exertion.

"Then why are you doing it...?!"

"Because..." Damon huffs, "despite the seemingly retarded amount of risks, I've pulled off shit like this before...and I know...I know I can pull it off again, 'cause I'm that fucking good. Oh, and not to mention...I really like blowing shit up."

"I don't know whether I'm supposed to be amazed or think you're an arrogant bastard."

"Neither. I don't need your praise or discontent to know I'm a motherfuckin' badass."

Reaching his objective, Damon grabs hold of the railings underneath the bridge right above the middle of the river, swings like a monkey swinging through jungle vines, and plants the charges side by side on the underside of the bridge at the point where the explosions will do their maximum damage.

"Charges set," Damon reports, having completed half of his objective. "Murakumo, change of plans. I'm gonna drop from here, and you need to catch me so we can save time, got it?"

"H-Huh!?" Murakumo, flabbergasted at the sudden change in her Admiral's decision, starts to panic. "D-Drop, right on me!? Wait, how much do you weigh?!"

"Are you frickin' kidding me? You're asking about my weight when you've got the strength of a ship? Get ready, we're wasting time. On three."

"W-Wait, hold on - "

"What's there to wait for? One, two, three."

Damon lets go of the railings and drops straight down into the river. Murakumo braces herself for the catch and holds her arms out, and Damon crashes into her arms as Murakumo stands steady.

"Thanks. See, wasn't so bad," Damon smirks as Murakumo looks at him disgustedly.

"Why do I have to carry you back?" Murakumo complains as she goes aground again. "Tell Amatsukaze to do this next time. I don't wanna have to hold you."

"Oh, so in other words, you want me to hold you?"

Murakumo nearly drops Damon onto the ground. "Shut up, shut up, shut up," she hisses.

They sneak up the riverbank to the northernmost bridge and repeat the process, this time Amatsukaze spotting Damon as he plants the second set of charges on the underside of the bridge. Warning Amatsukaze of his drop, Damon lets go of the bridge railings and plops right into Amatsukaze's arms.

"Hey, are human bodies this light?" Amatsukaze asks as she sets him down on shore. "I honestly was expecting you to be heavier."

Damon stares at her. "You're a goddamn ship encased in a human body. Are you forgetting what you are?"

Amatsukaze glares back at him. "What the hell? Don't talk to me like that, I was just asking a question!"

"And I was only stating a fact. Maybe you're slowly developing the sense of a normal human being? I dunno. Whatever the case, you have the strength of the ship you're named and based off of, does that answer your question?"

"But I already knew that!"

"Then why bother asking..."

"Besides that, Admiral," Murakumo points out, "normally a drop like that's really dangerous for a human being to do. Wouldn't you hurt your neck dropping from that high of a height?"

"Oh, and you ask me that _after_ I do it..." Damon scoffs. "Don't you worry about me. My body's been mutated due to exposure to radiation when I was young. My body's much, much tougher than your average human's...it's gonna be a challenge for anyone to try 'n snap my neck."

They emerge back onto the streets of Macon City, approaching what used to be the Greyhound bus station of the city, now nothing more than a final resting place for hulking wrecks that once were busy Greyhound buses transporting travelers throughout the Southern heartland. The three of them spot a group of six men smoking cigarettes around a small campfire in the bus lot, and Damon leads the ship girls along the shadows to remain unseen.

"Same plan," Damon whispers to Amatsukaze and Murakumo as they sneak near a row of dead hedges, just across from the campfire. He looks around the street block to make sure there are no other guards in sight and points to a bus wreck. "Murakumo, go to that bus and wait on my go. You're gonna use that silenced P-226 and shoot a couple of those guys, and me 'n Amy'll close in on 'em."

Murakumo moves past to get into position. From their current location, Amatsukaze and Damon are close enough to the men that they can eavesdrop on their conversation easily over the crackling of the small fire they have built to keep them warm and for light.

"So the next shipment 'a supplies' delayed for anotha week?"

"Yeah, man, heard by accident over 'em restricted comm channels...fuckin' sucks. But hey, y'know, we're used to it, ain't it right, boys?"

A general smattering of bitter laughter and chuckles.

"I mean, it ain't like they ain' done it like, six other times this month alone."

"Tch...'f only 'em punks din't bust out like they did...we wouldn't be livin' 'n eatin' like disgustn' varmin..."

"Amen, brotha. Fast'a we kill off 'em young'uns, fast'a we get ta go back to ol' Atlanta 'n eat like humans agin."

"But why haven't we? We got the men, we got the guns. Why can't we just storm that place and kill everyone?"

"Are ya fuckin' kiddin' me? If there's anythin' those punks know how to do, it's fight. See, lemme tell ya, they been roundin' up these kids from all over Georgia. Kids've been eatin' 'n fightin' for their lives. They're like rats, every one 'a 'em: they dunno how to die. No one gets it. They just...do."

"Hey, hey, that's why, that's why I was suggestin' to ol' man Timber dat all we gotta do is beat 'em over the head a couple times ta break 'em, 'n there we go! We ain't gotta worry 'bout 'em risin' up against us! See what fuckin' happened? See? I told y'all dis shit would happen. Now we all gotta pull double night shifts 'n pick our assholes before gettin' shot."

"Man, I dunno 'bout all y'all, but I do _not_ give two shits 'bout anythin' else other than some good ol' fashioned turkey back in the big city. Fuck all y'all, I'ma just walk there right now."

"Yeah, you do that, Landers, see if 'em kids don't get'cha 'n eat'cha alive."

Another smattering of low laughter flares up, and then a sudden noise erupts from across the parking lot. It sounds like a garbage can being knocked over noisily.

_"S-Shit...!"_ Murakumo's urgent voice pokes through Damon's headset. _"I didn't know that was there - !"_

"God-fucking-damn it..." Damon facepalms hard as Amatsukaze rolls her eyes at Murakumo's blunder.

_"H-Hey, don't complain, my sensors only pick up vital signs and heartbeat signatures, not anything else!"_ Murakumo whispers desperately back, but her cover is already blown.

"Yo, someone check that out," one of the men near the campfire orders.

"Hey man, it ain't gonna be me, I went out on patrol last time."

"I dun care who, someone get'cher lazy ass up 'n check it out!"

"Well, ya see, no one's sittin', so I guess no one here's got a lazy ass..."

More chuckles from the snide remark burst aloud before one of the men saunter off towards the direction of the garbage can with a flashlight.

"Waste him, Murakumo," Damon orders quietly, and a loud _pfff! _erupts from the darkness, quickly followed by a loud slump against the ground. At this, the rest of the men become alarmed.

"Yo, Henderson, where you at? What happened?" one of the men with another flashlight calls out, beaming his light towards the direction that the man named Henderson had walked off. The flashlight reveals a single dead body, blood pouring from his head.

Amatsukaze performs a flying kick right to the back of the closest opponent she can reach and kicks him straight into another man, and they both collapse into the small fire, smothering it almost completely. Damon, who was also approaching at the same time, takes advantage of the severely decreased vision for his enemies and covers the rest of the ground quickly, slitting the throat of another man as Amatsukaze drops her foot down on the two men in the fire with the weight of her respective ship, swiftly breaking their spines at the same time with a single stomp. The two remaining men, confused at the commotion and lack of visibility, shriek out in fear, and one of them starts to run away, but Damon shoves the man whose throat he has slit with his karambit knife so that the dying man collapses onto the man about to run away. Upon hearing the gargles and chokes of death from his dying comrade, the man screams out in pure terror and fires his Glock 17 pistol three times at him, finishing what Damon started, and Amatsukaze dashes directly in front of him, drives her left fist deep into his stomach, twisting her fist as she does so, and rapidly backflips, kicking the man on the chin and sending him flipping over and over until his body slaps hard against the ground, resulting in a horribly fractured right arm, where his body landed.

Murakumo, upon seeing the fight, moves in quickly to finish off the last man, but instead of succumbing to panic just yet, he hurries away from the scene, listening for anything that might sound like it is chasing after him. Upon hearing Murakumo's approaching footsteps, he guesses her arrival correctly and swings the butt of his Henry Octagon Frontier lever action rifle, catching Murakumo by the nose and knocking her down. Murakumo, not expecting her target to be able to put up any sort of resistance, falls to the ground, holding her nose, but tries to get back up quickly. However, upon hearing someone fall from his blow, the rifleman cocks his gun and aims where he thinks his target's head will be and is about to pull the trigger when a loud _crack!_ bursts out, and the man drops his lever action rifle before collapsing from a shot to the back of the head. Damon, quickly holstering his smoking Glock 37, calls out to Murakumo.

"Murakumo, grab that guy's gun! We've caused too much commotion here, we have to get the fuck out!"

Murakumo looks around them as her sensors warn her of additional approaching heartbeat signatures. Sure enough, flashlights are converging on their position from all sides - from the northernmost bridge and the surrounding streets, threatening to trap them inside the Greyhound bus lot. The three scavenge what they can and manage to slip past the approaching groups of patrolmen by heading northwest towards the run-down restaurant buildings.

"Just so you know, I don't think I can carry much more than this," Amatsukaze warns as they take refuge inside the broken building, among overturned and smashed, rotting tables. "Without being able to fight properly, that is."

"We made too much noise back there," Damon says, catching his breath. "We can't afford to take another engagement like that again, especially now that they know we're screwing with 'em. In fact, we shouldn't've picked a fight if I knew we were gonna make so much noise."

"W-Well, I'm _sorry!_" Murakumo blurts out. "I didn't know that stinkin' garbage can was there!"

"I wasn't blaming you or anyone in particular," Damon glares at his first ship girl. "Though I'm honestly surprised you could make a mistake like that."

"I told you, I only pick up heartbeat signatures! I don't have some fancy-schmancy night-vision like you do!"

"Nor do I," Amatsukaze pipes up, "but at least I'm careful whenever I'm running around. I'm gonna have to agree with Admiral on this one, that's not a mistake we ship girls should make."

Murakumo gives Amatsukaze the middle finger, and Amatsukaze promptly tackles Murakumo.

"Stop it, you two!" Damon raises his voice and the two ship girls scuffle briefly before they stop, still glaring at each other and baring their teeth like ferocious dogs about to be loosed on one another. "I'm more surprised that you even know how to flip someone off, let alone know what it means, but we gotta move. You can fight however much you want once we're fuckin' outta this town, ya hear me?"

Damon glares at the two of them again.

"Didn't I already fuckin' say this before? Didn't I? Huh? Don't fight among each other! If you absolutely fuckin' have to, like I said, do it when it ain't gonna bother anyone else or endanger anyone else! But you decide to have a fuckin' catfight _now!?_ What the _fuck _is wrong with _both_ of you! You're both _my _ship girls, and that makes you comrades, whether you like it or not! I ain't askin' you to _like _each other, I'm fuckin' orderin' you to work with each other! Am I fuckin' clear?!"

They both nod silently, but neither of them are looking at one another or Damon, for that matter. Damon sighs quietly, looking out towards the dark and silent streets, wondering if he can manage to keep both of his ship girls under control long enough to reach the university again.


	12. Paradise Lost

Having reached the safety of the protected university grounds, Damon and his two ship girls deliver what weapons they managed to scavenge to the university's weapons lockers in one of the lecture halls north of the university center. Chad had given the three some space to sleep for the night just outside the headquarters office, and Damon, worn out from the night's work, quickly falls asleep, leaving Murakumo and Amatsukaze awkwardly staring up at the tall ceiling of the university center, lying on their backs underneath their scratchy blankets.

"Hey...Murakumo?" Amatsukaze mutters in a low voice so as to not wake up her Admiral.

"What?" Murakumo mumbles back, a touch of irritation still present in her tone.

"Don't be like that, I just wanna ask you something."

"Then what is it?"

Amatsukaze tilts her head over to face Murakumo. "What do you think of the world as it is right now?"

Murakumo also faces Amatsukaze. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you know, according to Admiral, we weren't activated when we were supposed to, which was nearly two decades ago. Never mind the fact that we're still in perfect working order during our...I guess, dormancy?...I don't think this was the kind of world we expected to live in."

"Oh..." Murakumo goes back to gazing up at the ceiling again. "Why should our locale matter? We were constructed specifically to fight, and above all else, obey the person we call 'Admiral'. Even if that's someone who stuck a knife in our heads and hacked our command protocols...there's nothing we can do about it now."

"But I'm talking about this world in general. Everywhere we go, it's nothing like the world we knew before we got shut off for shipping and transport twenty years ago. Even if we were only active for a brief period, the world feels so much more different than it was."

Murakumo bites her lip. "There's no denying that this world now is a lot harsher. I mean...I watched Admiral shoot a baby in the face. Even though I got really mad at him for doing something so cruel, am I really someone who has the experience to tell him that what he did was wrong? Just going off what he told me, it sounds like everyone who survived the apocalypse suffered. This whole time we haven't even seen any of those blue skies that we saw back when we were activated for the first time out of R&D. The whole world...just overall, it feels more icky."

Sighing, Murakumo closes her eyes. "But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the world's like or what we think about it. We follow Admiral's orders, and that's it. What's the point of talking about these things..."

Amatsukaze gives her fellow ship girl an irritated look. "You sound like we're just mindless robots of Admiral's. You know full well that's clearly not the case. We're humans too, you know."

"Humans? Us? That's the most bogus thing I've heard you say so far...pff..."

"What's so funny about that? It's true! We're humans too, you know!"

"Oh, really...do tell..."

"You piece of..." Amatsukaze starts to raise her voice and clench her fist in anger, but Damon stirs and shifts about under his own scratchy blanket, causing Amatsukaze to lower her voice again. "We have human bodies, okay? We think just like a human would! Don't you remember? The people who built us meant for us to be just like humans! Is your main processor, like, malfunctioning already?"

"Your data cores must be the things malfunctioning right now," Murakumo scoffs back. "Just because we have the bodies and tendencies of human beings does _not _make us human beings. We're too strong, too smart...too inhuman to be human. We're walking computers, do you realize that? Computers in genetically modified human bodies. I really don't think that qualifies us to be human. And besides, what the hell does this whole crap matter anyway? Let me go to sleep..."

"No, screw you. You and I still have thoughts and emotions, don't we? We might be computers, but we're not some desktop that just sits on a desk waiting for someone to punch some keys in. We're a lot more than that, aren't we? You can't deny that!"

"Whatever...I don't really care..." Murakumo rolls over to her side so that her back is facing Amatsukaze. Amatsukaze, knowing that Murakumo is fed up talking with her for the night, sighs heavily and irritably rolls over on her side too, putting her back to Murakumo on the other side of her Admiral.

A minute later, both ship girls, not yet asleep, hear some footsteps shuffling by and entering the office. They can hear Chad's and Dee Jay's voices through the walls.

"C'mon, man, you ain't jus' gon' leave us. These kids see you as their muh'fuckin' _leader_, man. You ain't jus' gon' leave 'cause yo girl's dead!"

"Bro, you don't understand. Kassia was my _girl_, man. You know this story already, don't you?"

"Which one?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake...dude, I _told _you! When I first got my ass dragged here, Kassia was the one who made me realize there's still a reason to keep on living, you feel me? That reason is _her!_ I've been patient this entire time, ridin' on the hope that she's still in that shithole doing just fine. But I'm tellin' you, I know there's a good chance she could also already be dead. And if that's the case, then I'm sorry. You're gonna have to lead these boys for me."

"Aw, _fuck _no! I ain't half the man you are! I just like shootin' those cocksucka's who holed us up here to begin with! I ain't no leader, they ain't gonna see me the same way they see you, anyway!"

"Listen, Dee Jay. These guys looked to me 'cause I was the first to stand up 'n shank one of those bastards. You knew me before we broke out! I was jus' a dinky scrub not really knowin' what I'd do. We all wanted to get out, fight back, but no one knew how, much less me. But they took away Kassia - _my _Kassia - and I couldn't take it no more. But it doesn't have to be just me! It coulda been anyone else, dude! It coulda been anyone leadin' us right now, and I'd be somebody different! I just happened to be the perfect guy to lead everyone. And now, I've told everyone already earlier tonight that when we rush 'em tomorrow, whether or not we end up winnin' and kickin' those bastards out, if I don't get my Kassia back, there ain't no point in me stayin' with y'all anymore."

"But, my nigga..." Dee Jay protests, "you my _friend!_"

An awkward, semi-dramatic pause ensues.

"You mah _homie_, nigga! Don't _you_ remember? When we broke out 'n took over this place, I was right there next to ya, shootin' 'n shankin' those bitches with ya! I know you dedicated 'n shit to yo' girl, but c'mon, man, this is bullshit! You can't just leave us 'cause yo' girl died! There's plenty 'a peeps who's lost their friends 'n family, but they ain't gone 'n offed 'emselves! You gotta stay strong, man, like you always been! So as yo' friend, I have to tell ya, you can't jus' die 'cause yo girl's dead, it ain't fair to the rest of us!"

"Bro..." Chad sighs deeply. "There ain't no such thing as fair. Hell, if there's anything this shithole of a world's taught us, it's that! Fuckin' A, this pile 'a dead coons ain't got _nothin' _to show us that anythin's fair! You stronger? You better armed? You got power? Fuckin' great, yo, you got the whole world in yo' motherfuckin' hands, baby! Who the fuck cares 'bout a buncha kid slaves down South, huh? Ain't no one's problem 'cept ours, so only _we _gotta deal with it! What'cha talkin' 'bout 'fair' to me, huh? You been a damn slave just like me up 'til not even a month ago, and you still fuckin' insist on makin' shit _fair?_ I was chill with bein' the leader dude of all of us, 'cause no one else really felt like it. But Kassia's a higher priority than anythin' else. I'm sorry, bro. I know you my friend. I know you're one 'a my best buds, and I really don't wanna leave y'all if I don't have to. But Kassia's the reason why I was able ta lead y'all to this position in the first place. If she's dead after everythin's said and done, I'd feel like I'm just slappin' her in the face if I keep on livin'."

"C'mon, nigga - "

_"Dee Jay, shut the hell up! _I ain't yo 'nigga', I'm fuckin' more cracker than all the saltines you could put togetha from this end 'a shit-town Georgia to big dick Mississippi! This my decision, bro. I'm tired 'a this world. Kassia's the only reason why I decided to extend my own life a bit longer, in the hope that she's still alive 'n kickin'. If I wanna take my own life, then I fuckin' will."

"All I'm tryin' ta say, my man, 's that you jus' takin' the easy way out. The rest 'a us - we out here. We out here doin' _work!_ We showin' the world we ain't no bitch-ass slaves bendin' over fo' some nasty muh'fucka up in Atlanta. No way, no how, son! You kill yoself, you know what, you a coward. A coward! You ain't gonna tough it out, and all 'cause yo' girl's dead. You can find anotha, bro! I know we out here in some apocalyptic shitstorm, but still man, there's gotta be someone else out there too!"

"Another Kassia? Ain't gonna happen. It jus' ain't. And I'm fine with bein' a fuckin' coward, man. You ain't gotta tell me it's a punk-ass thing to do, offin' myself over my girl, I know. But it's what I made my mind up on, and no one gonna stop me, not even you, Dee Jay. And you think you a badass muthafucka, callin' me out on bein' a bitch coward? Bro, you callin' _me _a coward? If I'm a coward, those shit-tongued pile 'a fuckwads up in Atlanta must be like the biggest twats I ever heard of. Find someone _else _to find to call 'em a coward, bro. You're just wastin' it on a dude who's already half dead. Now get the hell outta my room, I'm goin' to sleep. We still got a fight to finish at the very least."

A few minutes of silence pass before the headquarters office door opens and shuts, a bit louder than it normally sounds. Dee Jay, still muttering profanity to himself, shuffles away into the darkness of the university center. The light goes out in the office, and Amatsukaze and Murakumo can hear Chad settle under the covers of his own blanket and go to sleep.

"...you heard everything, right?" Amatsukaze whispers, the two ship girls' backs still facing one another.

"...so what?"

"...no, just asking..."

"Whatever..."

The night concludes to day.

* * *

A few minutes before noon, Chad's entire army of about two hundred teenagers, most of whom are scantily armed with nothing more than knives or pistols, approach the bridge on Highway 80. Because Damon and his shipgirls had caused such a ruckus the night before, they had unwittingly sent the patrol groups in the area into a panic and patrol the town through the night, so the three bridges' defenses are severely understaffed, allowing the teen army to easily capture the town up to the Ocmulgee River, overtaking whatever few patrol groups unfortunate enough to be assigned to patrol the town for the morning and stealing their weapons. Damon, sitting in his driver's seat and smoking the last bit of his lemon cigarette with his hand out the driver's seat window, waits for Chad's call through the walkie-talkie Damon had been given. Murakumo and Amatsukaze are both hiding behind the driver's and shotgun seats in the back seats, under their Admiral's orders and out of sight, with their weapons ready.

"Hey, Admiral," Amatsukaze calls out from behind the shotgun seat.

"Yeah?"

"...um...last night, we...we overheard a conversation between Chad and his friend Dee Jay."

"...and?"

"Chad's going to commit suicide if his girlfriend isn't alive after all this..."

Damon blows out a breath full of citrus-y lemon scent. "And?"

"...Admiral, Chad's going to die! Can't you stop him?"

"But like, why should I? If he really doesn't want to live anymore, who am I to say that he shouldn't take his own life?"

"But Dee Jay said that Chad shouldn't kill himself just because his girlfriend's dead, because he'd be leaving behind everyone who sees him as a leader! I don't think that's fair to everyone!"

"So you agree with Dee Jay, in other words."

"Well...yeah! Yeah, I do! Because it's like if you died, what're we going to do? It's not like we'll find someone like you who's able to reprogram our command protocols for a third time or whatever, right?"

"...maybe not. But as much as I think Chad's a damn pussy for dying over a girlfriend, he can do what he wants. He used to be a slave in the hands of those bandit dudes working for the slobjobs up in Atlanta, but he ain't a slave anymore. He's able to make the choice for himself whether he wants to continue living or not - that has nothing to do with me." Damon inhales another breath from his cigarette. "And...maybe you girls won't understand this, but...if he loves his girlfriend that much to the point where he feels like he can't live on without her, then either he's just downright blinded by his own delusions or just straight up stupid, which I hope isn't the case, or he's just a dedicated guy. I guess that's one of the things that you girls will have the hardest of times getting to understand."

A brief pause before Amatsukaze asks again, "Love?"

"Yeah...humans all have their different views of what love is and what they interpret it to be. In Chad's case, his love for his girlfriend...I think she was called Kassia, if I remember correctly...or Kasey, I dunno, I didn't pay attention...is enough for him to off himself if he can't have her in his life. Unfortunately for guys like him, that kinda love's only in fairy tales and books now. It's really hard to have a nice life like that. I'd wish him the best, but I've seen plenty of people who had their loved ones die before they did. He's just another guy like the rest of 'em."

"But Chad's different! Who can lead those kids if he's gone?"

"Someone'll step up," Damon nonchalantly shrugs.

"Dee Jay will," Murakumo mutters, unwilling to enter the conversation fully herself. "You know that too, Amatsukaze."

"Yeah, but...well...he said he didn't want to be one, didn't he?"

"Then whatever, it isn't our problem." Murakumo does not say anything further, but when Amatsukaze looks at Murakumo, the former notices the latter with a complicated face. Before Amatsukaze can comment on it aloud, a loud, obnoxious screech is emitted from Damon's walkie-talkie.

_"Hey, Damon, bro, we're all good to go! We're all waitin' just outside the bridge, so bring the truck 'n get 'em!"_ Chad's voice bleeds through painfully into the old walkie-talkie, and Damon turns on his truck, which was waiting on the intersection of Walnut Street and Highway 80.

"Alright, girls, we're gonna free these kids. You want Chad to live, shoot every bastard you see," Damon says darkly as he revs the engine.

The truck is quickly skidded to a stop in front of the bridge's barricades. Before the guards there can react in time, two mighty explosions rock the earth. The teen soldiers, having set up closely around the Highway 80 bridge, and the guards of the bridge both watch the other two bridges lose structural integrity with the I.E.D.'s that Damon had planted last night and quickly break apart and collapse into the dirty river below. As the bridges are crumbling, Murakumo and Amatsukaze lean out of the rolled-down windows of the back seats of the utility truck and begin to fire, Murakumo with the MK-14 Rogue Chassis and Amatsukaze with the AK-47. The three guards distracted by the explosions all go down immediately, and the teen soldiers cheer wildly and begin storming across the only bridge that grants access to the other half of Macon City. Damon revs the truck engine again and smashes through the initial barricade successfully, albeit being peppered by wood splinters and other small debris in the process. As according to plan, Chad's selected comrades, all armed with the few assault rifles and weapons that Damon and crew had managed to scavenge from the previous night and had distributed, run up to the truck and climb onto it. Some of them simply hang on to the side of the truck or on the doors, some hop into the truck bed and hang out there, and the rest are boosted up to the top of the truck.

"Hang on!" Damon roars, and he guns the engine of the truck again and zooms across the bridge.

"Admiral, there's a large group of unknown contacts just up ahead!" Murakumo yells.

"Then light 'em the fuck up!"

Murakumo pats Amatsukaze on the shoulder. "Duck, I'm shooting over you!"

As the truck passes a checkpoint with guards guarding the outpost, the truck's occupants simultaneously open fire. The sheer volume of fire negates any inaccuracy issues any one shooter might have and kills all the guards in quick succession, and Damon does not bother slowing the truck down and instead heads straight towards the Coliseum Medical Center. Once they reach a distance of three hundred meters away, Damon stops the truck, but right as he cuts off the engine, a sniper bullet rings out and catches one of the riders on top in the chest.

"Get off the truck and get behind it!" Damon bellows as another sniper bullet, this time missing, snaps over their heads, and everyone obeys without a word. Another boy drags the wounded guy off with him as Damon grabs his bullpup marksman rifle from Murakumo, leans out from the truck, acquires his target, zeroes accordingly, and double-taps. Missing his first shot, Damon scores the second on the sniper's lower abdomen, causing the enemy sniper to clutch at the bullet wound and topple off the roof of one of the buildings in the compound.

"Hey, can you keep fighting?" Damon asks the teenager who was just shot in the chest, looking at the wound.

"Yeah, dude, this ain't shit! I can't even feel it!" he yells back, popping a pained smile. Noticing that the wound is only a .22 like his own wound, Damon nods.

"Then everyone, get back on the truck and we'll get down to the park! Let's go, let's go!"

Once everyone is back on the truck, Damon drives off the highway down to ground zero. As soon as he gets off the off-ramp from the highway, Amatsukaze shouts out, "Admiral, there's a convoy of three urals off to our right!" Damon snaps his attention towards his right, and he spies the convoy reaching the end of the street, about to take a hard right, presumably to reach the entrance of the medical compound. Rolling down the front passenger window, Damon stops the truck and aims his bullpup marksman rifle, firing two shots. Both shots strike the back tires of the ural in the back of the convoy, and the ural skids about and slams into a dead tree trunk on the side of the street with its side. Damon pulls up his own truck near it, hops out without bothering to turn off the engine, pulls out his Glock 37, and blasts the driver with a single shot when the latter hobbles out of the driver's seat in a daze from the crash. The other boys, following suit, quickly surround the crashed ural and dispatch of anyone that they find. Damon peers inside the bed of the ural and calls out to the others.

"There's a whole shit-ton 'a AK's and ammo in here! Everyone grab one and a couple mags if you don't have a better gun! Murakumo, shut off the engine for me, we're on foot from here!"

The young men cheer and eagerly hop into the bed of the ural. One of them stays inside, throwing out AK-47's to the rest of his buddies one by one. Another boy brings out a big box of ammunition for everyone to take, and Amatsukaze and Murakumo both take a few magazines themselves. Murakumo takes another rifle entirely, just in case.

"Where to now, sir?" One of the boys asks.

"Follow me! Murakumo, Amy, take point! Head east, then north 'til we get to Hospital Drive, and we'll start attacking!" Damon pulls out his walkie-talkie and pushes the push-to-talk button. "Hey, Chad, we're at the compound and about to start puttin' fire down on them! Where are you?"

A loud, scratchy feed greets Damon first before Chad's voice. _"Our fastest guys'll get there in like, ten minutes! Either wait for them to group up with you or do whatever you can to soften 'em up!"_

"Tell them to start hitting the compound from the west, we have the east side covered!" Damon snaps the device back onto his belt as they reach Hospital Drive, the entrance of which is cut off by a thin but large metal gate.

"Murakumo, Amy, find a way to breach this gate!" Damon orders, prepping his L.S.A.T. machine gun.

"Breach? Heh, that's easy!" Murakumo grins condescendingly. She and Amatsukaze start punching the gate, alternating punches, until the gate gives way and allows them to bore a large hole in the gate. However, as soon as they make such a hole, a bullet whizzes on through and hits Murakumo in the upper right leg, bouncing off and rolling along the ground because of the ship girls' Smartsteel construct.

"Everyone get behind me!" Murakumo advises as she immediately pops her Ice Shield. "Amatsukaze, finish breaking down the gate for me!"

Amatsukaze steps in front of Murakumo and primes her Ignition Glove to finish punching their way through the gate. With the additional firepower that Amatsukaze's flaming Ignition glove provides, the intense and focused heat does not diminish the potency of Murakumo's shielding but instead only chews away at the metal gate, and soon there is a big enough hole for three people to enter through at once. Amatsukaze hops in first, out of the protection of Murakumo's Ice Shield, and is hit by a couple more bullets ringing out from all over the compound before driving her fist into the ground. A long wall of flame erupts spontaneously from the ground in front of her, generating a light but intense smokescreen and visibility distortion to provide cover for everyone else.

"Don't just stand there 'n gawk, c'mon, run through!" Damon yells at the baffled boys still trying to figure out what the hell those girls are doing. Snapping out of their confusion, the boys follow Damon through with Murakumo guarding the gate, bullets pinging off her shield instead of hitting anyone else as they scatter about to their left and right behind buildings for cover. Once Damon, too, rolls to cover behind a short storage building, he yells for his ship girls to follow him, and they break their defenses and dive for cover, the wall of flame fizzing away.

"Chad, Dee Jay! We got our guys inside the medical center place! We're under fire, but we're gonna try 'n make something work! Do you know where those guys're bein held? The prisoner people or whatever?" Damon barks loudly into his walkie-talkie so that he can be heard over the constant cracks of gunfire. The wounded boy is standing next to him, clutching at his chest and breathing more and more stagnantly. Amatsukaze walks up to him, noticing his wound, and murmurs to him,

"This is gonna hurt, but it'll save your life."

She presses the palm of her Ignition Glove against the bullet wound and activates it. The teen drops his AK-47, choking at the sudden surge of blazing pain, but Amatsukaze presses even harder against his chest before ripping her hand away, leaving behind a charred handmark on his bloody shirt and a cauterized bullet wound.

"I wasn't plannin' on gettin' outta here alive, ma'am, but thanks for givin' me some hope," he grins, picking his weapon back up.

_"We ain't got a clue, man, you gotta find out yourself! We're 'bout to hit the place to the northwest instead, there's a couple buildings there we can use as cover as we move in! Do whateva the fuck you need to to find Kassia! Oh shi - __"_

Damon hears the chill-inducing and ever-cliched but still ever-frightening scream of _"RPG! ! ! !"_ over the mic and a consequent explosion.

"Chad!? Chad, come in!"

Chad responds promptly, coughing and wheezing. _"Y-Yeah, I'm good, someone just shot a mothafuckin' rocket at us, good thing he didn't know jack shit how to fire it! Listen, Damon, just focus on your shit, we know what we doin'!"_

Damon barely has time to put away his walkie-talkie when Murakumo yells out, "Contacts, flanking our left! Six hostiles!"

About half of the boys react quickly and professionally, hurrying over to the left side of the building among the grove of oak trees with Murakumo leading. Two of the boys lay prone on the ground, while the rest peek out with Murakumo, their AK-47's ready to fire. Soon, the six men wearing makeshift turbans with old shirts hurry into view with AK-47's of their own.

"Get 'em!"

Murakumo needs only utter the first word to have a great volley of 7.62x39mm rounds punch a couple holes through that group of six enemies, dropping three instantly and causing another to stumble from a shot to the ankle, crippling him. Murakumo headshots him for the kill, and the other two men dive behind a derelict car wreck and fight back by blindfiring their rifles over the car hood. One of those bullets fired blindly strikes the boy on the left laying prone, and he slumps, dead, just like that.

"Shit!" the teen on the right swears, thanking his lucky stars that he wasn't the one shot dead on the spot, and gets up to drag the body of his dead comrade away behind the building so he can strip him of his ammunition as much as he can carry.

"Yo, in here!" Damon calls, kicking down what should have been a locked door to gain access to the building. He and his comrades pour in and find to their disgust that a horrible stench greets them.

"Holy fuck, they be keepin' bodies here or what?!" one of the boys yells out sarcastically. "This shit's like a garbage dump or a pisspool, I don't even wanna start tryin' to tell the difference!"

Damon peers out in the front lobby of the building, and there lies the answer: heaps upon heaps of random sizes of plastic bags, filled to the brim and overflowing with trash that appear to be days, possibly weeks old and spawning all sorts of flies and insects, sit about. "Think this might give you your answer," Damon mutters disgustedly, pointing over to the front lobby, and the boys exclaim their profane enlightenment.

"Alright, listen up!" Damon yells out again to get everyone's attention. "Me 'n these girls here - " Damon drags Murakumo and Amatsukaze next to him - "will snipe off anyone we can from upstairs! I want everyone else to lock down this floor so we don't get invaded or some shit. That clear?"

"Yeah!"

With the rest of the boys' cooperation, Damon climbs the stairs with his two ship girls and simply kicks open the locked door to the roof again. Immediately, Damon spots four armed men straddling the rooftops of the buildings surrounding theirs, and his rooftop has no viable cover.

"Murakumo, cover us!" Damon orders, and she activates her Waterfall Shield once again just in time to prevent another sniper bullet from striking Damon in the right kneecap.

"This isn't safe out here, Admiral!" Murakumo says, watching the bullet slide off her shield. "Plus, you can't shoot out from here!"

"But what if you do this?" Damon puts down his L.S.A.T. and equips his DSR-50 sniper rifle instead. Setting the muzzle brake just outside the shield so that only a small tip of the barrel pokes out from the shield, Damon acquires one of his targets, dumbfounded by the scene they are making, and fires. The easy shot scores a spectacular headshot, and blood, brain, and bone implode from what used to be a human head and sends the victim wobbling about for a moment before toppling off the rooftop and crashing down to the ground some forty feet below. "That worked, so keep holding it like that until I kill everyone."

"It's gonna drain a lot of my battery, you know!" Murakumo yells as Damon continues to fire his sniper rifle. Bullets shot at them fro the other rooftops ping off the shield harmlessly all the while. "Isn't there a more efficient way of doing this?!"

"If you can think of a better plan, I'd be more 'n happy to hear it!" Damon replies without breaking his fire, working the bolt for a fourth time and firing the last bullet in his chamber. As he reloads, the amount of fire they have been taking subsides considerably, as the other enemy snipers saw what had happened to their comrades and decided they did not wish to die in such horrible manners and thus retreated.

"They're running away. What should we do now?" Amatsukaze asks.

"I'm gonna scan everything I can from here, when I've got a vantage point...somewhat," Damon says, pointing the barrel of his sniper rifle to each of the buildings' interiors, using the scope as a sort of makeshift binoculars. He sees enemy movement through the windows, as many men are hurrying to head towards the northwest. And as if on cue, Damon's walkie-talkie screams out again with static.

_"Damon, Damon! We got a...a whole fuckton 'a guys layin' down on us! There any way you can help? We're fuckin' losin' guys left 'n right!"_ Chad can be heard yelling over gunfire so intense that they may as well be shot at by a machine gun.

"I'm sendin' my girls over to you to help, a'ight? Hold out 'til then!" Damon looks at his two ship girls. "You heard me. Get over to them and kill anyone you see who isn't a friendly or a prisoner, in case you find Kassia or anyone else who's being held captive. I'll lead the boys over somehow."

Murakumo and Amatsukaze nod and fearlessly leap off the rooftop of the garbage disposal building down to the parking lot and street below, and Damon hurries back inside to avoid getting hit without the protection of Murakumo's Waterfall Shield. Just as they hit the ground, the group of masked men that Damon saw through the windows of the Coliseum Medical Center building bursts out from the front entrance in order to make their way over to the northwest of the compound to fight off Chad's army. They immediately spot Murakumo and Amatsukaze rolling to a stop and recognize them as the enemies who breached through the west from earlier and open fire. Both ship girls are struck with rifle cartridges as they, too, return fire, unfazed. Murakumo tosses aside her empty magazine as she and Amatsukaze run past the bodies of the men they have just killed. Then, more bullets strike the ground around their feet, and Amatsukaze drags Murakumo just in time away from a volley of more AK-47 and M4-A1 fire behind a dead tree.

"There's more people up in that middle building just ahead!" Amatsukaze yells, pointing out the second floor windows where soldiers are lined up and firing at them. The bullets are chewing away mercilessly at the dead and decayed bark, and one of the bullets hits a particularly soft spot on the tree and raps Amatsukaze right on her smokestack hat. "I'm going to burn those bastards out, okay? Go ahead of me and hit those guys from behind!" she says, readjusting the smokestack hat back onto her head. "Wait for me to do that, then go!"

"Then get on it!" Murakumo yells back, and Amatsukaze leaps out and dashes with superhuman speed towards the building. Holding her AK-47 with her left hand, Amatsukaze leaps up to the nearest window,weathering the bulletstorm that comes her way to stop her, her Ignition Glove practically set ablaze with all the fire energy she has packed into her hand. She plunges her right fist through the window, and as soon as the glass shatters to give way to her glove, the entire second floor erupts and belches out one giant wave of fire the temperature of the surface of the sun, shattering the rest of the windows on the second floor and partially melting the windows on either floor above and below it. Some of the men inside who were closer to the windows end up stumbling their way off the second floor and crash to the ground, either crippling themselves or otherwise injuring themselves as they slowly roast to death, and the rest of the men inside who were not near the windows instead become blinded by the fire and gases that burned their eyes out and are cooked to death as well. Upon seeing the effects, Murakumo emerges from the tree she was using as cover and crosses the parking lot with minimal resistance as she can hear more fireballs pluming inside the building on the other floors. Amatsukaze must really dislike taking prisoners...either that, or she must really enjoy setting people on fire.

As she heads further northwest, she soon approaches a skybridge that connects one of the laboratory facilities to the main central building of the medical compound, on top of which stand a row of masked bandits firing down upon some roads that Murakumo cannot see from her current position. She is about to switch weapons to Damon's MK-14 Rogue Chassis when suddenly the men begin to reel over, one by one, until they are all dead and bleeding or have fallen off the skybridge to their deaths below. She can hear the yells and cheers of teenage soldiers and hurries to round the street corner, and when she does so, she is immediately met by a large group of boys and girls who have captured what appears to be a truckyard and are in the process of looting them for weapons and supplies. One of the girls spots Murakumo and waves out to her, recognizing the ship girl's light blue hair.

"Hey, you, you're that super-girl, aren't'cha? C'mon, Chad's here! Come get some stuff!"

Murakumo hurries over as the girl calls for Chad, and Chad, flanked closely by his friend and second-in-command Dee Jay, quickly meets with Murakumo.

"Okay, so lemme fill you in on what happened so far. We overran this position just with sheer numbers alone - they can't've had more 'n a couple dozen guys posted in this area. We lost some guys, but a lot less than I thought we would. Now these trucks are all ours - we just need to find the keys to these damn things and we can all get the hell outta here, supplies 'n all."

"We beat the shit outta one dude we found still alive," Dee Jay adds quickly. "He knew the place where Kassia 'n the otha's're bein' held. They should be inside this buildin' here." He points to the tall building right in front of them.

"Amatsukaze, the other girl who was with us, should be inside," Murakumo tells them. "She's already killing as many of the enemies as she can."

"That's fuckin' awesome, means it'll be safer for us." Chad nods. "Hey, whoever's got good gear, follow me, we gotta find our friends! We ain't leavin' anyone who's still alive in this shithole!"

The boys and girls cheer. Dee Jay, having scavenged a Mossberg 500 pump action shotgun from an enemy, walks up to one of the few service doors on the side of the central building and shoots off the lock. Chad kicks open the door, and Murakumo leads the way in with her AK-47 ready to fire. When she sees the coast clear, she beckons to everyone else to follow, and everyone surges in.

"They'll be on the third floor, in one of the rooms!" Dee Jay hollers. "Yo, you guys comin' in after us, secure the first floor 'n tell those niggas still out there bein' picky ta hurry the fuck up 'n pick 'n shoot somethin'!"

Finding the first floor relatively empty on their way to the stairs, one of the girls escorting Chad and Dee Jay and Murakumo opens the door to the stairs. Immediately, an improvised homemade explosive using a box of rusty, unused four-inch nails as shrapnel goes off, peppering the nails all over her face and shoulders. Screaming horribly, she falls to the ground, dropping her Glock 20 and clutching at her face and shoulders, pulling off the nails wherever she can. Murakumo, looking down at her in horror, then realizes that the reason why the injured girl is taking so long to remove the nails from her body is that a few of the nails sliced down into her eyeballs, almost disconnecting the lens away from the rest of her eyes.

"Ow, ow! I-I-I'm done for here, just leave me! Do what we all came here to do, Chad!" she screams as she painfully rips out the nails from her right eye. Chad, with an extremely complicated look on his face, swallows his emotions and pushes the rest forward.

"Up the stairs! C'mon!"

Chad, Dee Jay, Murakumo, and their escort of the remaining four boys and girls climb the stairs to the second floor, the door to which is visibly red, presumably from all the heat that Amatsukaze is throwing around in the second floor. They ignore it and continue up the stairs, and Chad barges his shoulder into the door to the third floor and points his Uzi down the hall. Two men with pistols turn around to see who has entered through the stairs, and Chad guns both of them down before they can retaliate. Murakumo and Dee Jay also enter the hall, but by this point more men, hearing the commotion and gunshots, also step out into the hallway to engage. A furious exchange of bullets ensues, and Chad is struck in the back, just above his right hip.

"Ey, yo dude, yer hurt!" Dee Jay yells after all the men are dead, kneeling by Chad, who is gripping his side as blood drips down through his fingers.

"Kkhhh...whatever, this shit's not important!" Chad yells it off and stands again, though with a bit of difficulty from the pain. "It's down the hall, that way! C'mon, we're almost there!" The boys and girls begin to rush towards the last room on the right in Murakumo's side of the corridor, but then the door to the room swings open, and a man with an M-14 battle rifle suddenly peeks out and fires a single bullet. The shot barely misses Murakumo's right cheek and instead rips through the neck of one of the boys with an assault rifle just behind her, and he topples over with a gaping hole in the back of his neck that reveals a severed spine and sprawling tissue. After taking the shot, the man retreats back into the door again as the other boys and girls return fire. Once they reach the door, Dee Jay simply gives a shrill yell of anger, sticks the muzzle of his Mossberg right up against the door, and pulls the trigger before Chad can order him not to do that. The Mossberg belches a shell full of buckshot, and the sound of a body flumping onto the ground on the other side of the door is enough to cause Dee Jay to kick open the door. Sure enough, the man with the M-14 is lying dead on the floor, his whole upper body and face gauged out with the fury of sixteen buckshot pellets. Everyone else piles in to check up on the prisoners, six more boys and seven more girls who are all tied up. Chad quickly removes the blindfolds and checks the faces, but soon he exclaims,

"Kassia ain't fuckin' here! Where the fuck is she!? Huh!?"

One of the prisoners, as soon as Dee Jay rips off the piece of tape over his mouth, gasps out, "Th-They took her up to the roof! If you're fast enough she should still be there!"

Chad immediately rushes back out the door. Dee Jay orders the teens who escorted them to help the prisoners out, and he and Murakumo quickly follow Chad back to the stairs and up to the roof. Chad, finding the door locked, bangs his fist in frustration, screaming, _"Open this shit up, for the love of Bloody Jesus Christ! Open the fuck up! ! ! !" _Murakumo pushes Chad out of the way and simply kicks the door off its hinges with her raw strength, and Chad is the first to burst through.

A few men, shirtless and only barely having put on their jeans, stare dumbfounded at the three bloodied, war-worn combatants. In one moment of time, Chad's eyes flicker from each of the three men, then down to the girl they are standing around, whom he recognizes to be Kassia.

It is obvious what they had been doing to Kassia. They had only just finished.

Chad simply raises his Uzi. The men try to raise their arms and cry out for their lives, but Chad is having none of it. He walks towards them quickly, while saying loudly but eerily calmly, "Hands behind your heads. Get to the edge of the roof. **_And kneel."_**

They do as he orders, but one of them screams, "D-don't kill us! We have family back home in Atlanta we gotta take care of!"

_**"Family?"**_Chad finally snaps, roaring. _**"YOU TALK OF FAMILY AND BEG FOR YOUR WORTHLESS FUCKING LIVES, AND YOU'RE SAYIN' THAT TO THE FACE OF THE GUY WHOSE GIRLFRIEND Y'ALL JUST RAPED? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ! ? ! ! ? FUCK YOU! FUCK ALL OF YOU! FUCK THIS WORLD, AND TELL SATAN TO FUCK OFF TOO FOR CREATING FUCKWADS LIKE THE WHOLE FUCKIN' LOT'A YOU! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !"**_

Beside himself with the wrath of three hundred Spartans, Chad kicks each of the men in the back of the head, one by one, and listens to their bodies smack against the broken roads below. He has little time to savor his revenge, however, as the engines and rotor blades of a helicopter come beating in from behind them from the west, and an MH-6 Little Bird, its minigun turrets replaced instead with M16-A4 assault rifles instead, flies over the roof and hovers in place with its guns pointed straight at Chad. Chad simply raises his Uzi, not giving another damn in the world anymore, and is about to pull the trigger when a loud boom goes off. Murakumo, Chad, and Dee Jay see a huge shower of sparks fly off the main rotor assembly, and just before the Little Bird is about to swivel out of the pilot's control, a blur zooms up from below the rooftop's edge and latches onto the helicopter. Amatsukaze grabs the side passenger, grabs his neck, and throws him out of the air, and pulling out a sawn-off shotgun from her back that she looted off one of the many enemies she had burned to death today, Amatsukaze literally shoves it into the right side of the pilot and pulls the trigger all the way, unleashing both barrels and shooting the pilot cleanly out of the helicopter in a mist of thick red gore. Flinging her spent sawn-off shotgun away, Amatsukaze deftly swings out of the passenger's side and plants both her feet on the front window of the now-out of control helicopter and kicks off as hard as she can, kicking the MH-6, which slowly but surely spins and spins its way to the ground and crashes and explodes in yet another spectacular fireball. Amatsukaze lands next to Chad as Damon, shouldering his smoking DSR-50 sniper rifle, walks forward slowly to stand next to Dee Jay and Murakumo from the roof access door, inspecting the scene.

"The compound's screwed over, Chad. We've kicked 'em out, and you've found your prisoners," Damon says, eyeing the limp body of Kassia. "Though...it seems you have one last task to do."

Chad, Uzi still in hand, turns back to Kassia and kneels down next to her side. Putting his hand on her scratched and raw neck, Chad tries to search for a pulse, but gets none.

"...is she dead?" Amatsukaze murmurs to Damon and Murakumo as they and Dee Jay watch from afar, not daring to interrupt Chad. Damon closes his eyes and sighs lightly.

"...from the looks of things, I'd say she is," Damon murmurs back. "She didn't look like she was breathing when I came in just now. That, and look at the blood on the ground behind her head. Bastards bashed her head in I don't know how many times, but probably enough to get her in an induced coma. By now, that's probably become death."

Chad, determining that the body of his girlfriend is lifeless, gazes at the violated corpse. Sighing for one last time, he leans over her body, puts his Uzi on the roof floor, and slides it towards the feet of his friend, Dee Jay, and takes Kassia's left hand in his own.

"Ch-Chad, y-ya know I can't, man, ya know I can't do it," Dee Jay stutters, shaking his head. He is on the verge of tears.

"If you ain't gonna do it, I know someone else who will," Chad raises his empty eyes at his friend. His eyes are the eyes of a man who has lost all hope in a world he never desired to live in. "Or, if I really fucking have to, I'll do it myself. Now hurry up...I don't wanna keep starin' at this ugly-ass world anymore."

"I told you, man, I ain't gon' do it!" Dee Jay bellows, wiping his eyes. Damon knows what he must do and draws his Glock 37, lining up his sights at Chad's head.

"A-Admiral! ! !" both Murakumo and Amatsukaze shriek out when they realize Damon is about to euthanize Chad and jump in the way.

"You two, step aside," Damon says calmly. "Murakumo, you've seen me do this once before, and while I don't expect you to understand, I do expect you to follow my orders. That goes for you too, Amy. Now step aside, we don't have much time - we need to get out of here before reinforcements arrive and manage to track us."

"Let him do it, you girls," Chad raises his voice. "This is what I want. You may not understand, but...I vowed to find Kassia alive after all of this, and if I found her dead or not at all, I'd off myself."

"B-But - !" Amatsukaze protests. "You can't just kill yourself just because someone died! All these other people are here for you, aren't they?!"

"Yeah! You're these guys' leader, right? What the hell are they supposed to do without you? You're seriously just going to leave them alone and have someone kill you? What's wrong with you, man!?" Murakumo screams at Chad. "What makes a girl like her so special that if she's dead, you have to die as well when you don't even have to?!"

A tense pause follows Murakumo's last words. Chad is biting his lip so hard that thick globs of blood dribbles down his chin and onto the ground, onto Kassia's limp left hand.

"I don't know who the fuck you girls are, okay? All this time I kept my mouth shut after seein' you girls do all that crazy shit like takin' bullets like it's nothing and settin' random people on fire, 'k? But when you start questionin' the decisions that _I _make as a man - " Chad throws his finger emphatically at the two ship girls - "I am **_NOT_ **gonna take your shit! Do you hear me!? **_I_** _**AIN'T GONNA TAKE YOUR SHIT! I AIN'T GONNA TAKE NO ONE'S SHIT! NOT YOU, NOT ANYONE'S, NOT EVEN THE WORLD'S! I BEEN TAKIN' WAY TOO MUCH SHIT AND I BENT OVER 'N TOOK IT LIKE A MAN! BUT AT SOME POINT I CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH, AND IF I FEEL LIKE I'VE TAKEN TOO MUCH, THAT'S THAT! I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU GIRLS ARE, NOR THAT GUY YOU KEEP CALLIN' 'ADMIRAL' 'N BOGUS SHIT LIKE THAT, BUT I DON'T FUCKIN' CARE! LET YOUR 'ADMIRAL' FUCKIN' SHOOT ME IN THE HEAD ALREADY! YOU'RE FUCKIN' WASTIN' YOUR TIME AND MINE! EVERYONE'S FUCKIN' TIME!"**_

A whole minute passes before Murakumo and Amatsukaze slowly step away, and Damon gets a clear shot again.

"Yo, Damon..." Chad mumbles for the last time. "You helped me and my friends out a whole bunch. So for everyone's behalf, I wanna thank you man. At the very least, with your help, I found out what happened to my girl...that I was late by just a day or somethin'. Thanks a lot, man. I know I can't ever pay you back, but even though we didn't even know each other for very long, I know you ain't a bad dude. Not like the rest of the assholes that walk this earth. You a good guy, a'ight? People like you need to keep livin'...not shitbags and weaklings like me. Thanks a lot, bro."

Damon adjusts his grip on his pistol.

"No problem, man. But you're not a bad person either, Chad. People might think that you having someone else kill you is all cowardly 'n all, but I don't care. You made a decision that you promised to fulfill to the very end, and you're sticking with it. I haven't met a whole lotta people who've had the balls to do that so far. You ain't weak, bro. You're a good guy too."

Chad breaks a small smile. "Maybe, man. If God says so too, then I guess I ain't so bad."

Damon pulls the trigger. The bullet casing hits the ground, almost perfectly synchronized with the back of Chad's head laying to rest on the roof floor.

"We can't stay here long," Damon says, putting away his sidearm. "The boys found whole boxes of fuckin' perfectly good C-4 underneath those damn heaps of trash in that other building we went to through the east - by the looks of it, they were hiding those there 'cause who'd ever look through bags upon bags of shit, right? They're setting the C-4 packs all over the compound - we ain't leavin' a bit of it standing once we leave. Dee Jay, get everyone into the trucks in the parking lots behind us. We need to evacuate asap."

Dee Jay nods, wiping tears away with the back of his hand. Picking up the Uzi at his feet, he walks over to the dead bodies of his friend and his girlfriend and arranges the bodies so that Chad is lying beside Kassia, their hands intertwined. Chad's other hand now holds the Uzi.

"We ain't never gonna have another guy like you, Chad," Dee Jay says through hiccups and a quick salute. "I ain't half the man you were, and you knew it, my nigga. What the hell're we all supposed ta do now...?"

* * *

Half an hour later, a large convoy of trucks, with Damon's utility truck in the lead, rolls away from the city of Macon, eastbound. Once they are a good three hundred meters away, Dee Jay and Damon simultaneously flip the switches of their remote detonators, and the resulting combination of explosions from all the packs of C-4 thrown around the compound and the buildings of the medical facility rock the ground, followed by the massive screeches of buildings collapsing to their deaths.

_"Ey yo, man, my nigga, been good meetin' y'all," _Dee Jay's voice bleeds through Damon's walkie-talkie. _"You helped out my people real good, ya hear? I know we lost a good guy, and we lost a lot more, but we all free now. You stay free too, aight? Don't eva let anythin' tell ya that ya gotta die for whatever reason. Keep livin', it's the best kinna revenge ya can ever get in this kinna world."_

Damon grins. "I can't agree more, man. I'll see you 'round, bro. Take care."

Damon swerves his truck onto Highway 23 out of Macon City. The truck drives for around half an hour in silence as Damon wears a pair of shades to ward against the wind flapping against him through the glassless front window, a lemon cigarette lit in between his teeth.

"...he didn't have to die..."

Damon glances to his right, and Murakumo, sitting in the front passenger seat, is staring down at her feet.

"He didn't have to die like that...he could've kept living, he was a good kid..." she mutters miserably.

Damon pulls out his cigarette to talk. "You ought to remember that for the rest of your lives. That ain't gonna be the first time you'll see good people die in such a retarded way. The first time is always the hardest - and the more they happen, the more you get used to it."

"Admiral," Amatsukaze speaks up, "you mentioned that it's because of love that Chad died back there. What is that, exactly? We don't understand why someone would be so stubborn to die like that. That's against all logic and reasoning. I don't get it. And I agree with Murakumo, too. I don't think Chad needed to die back there. His death was a waste..."

Slowly exhaling a breathful of lemon, Damon puts his cigarette back in between his teeth as he navigates the truck onto another on-ramp.

"Emotions are things that all - no, I shouldn't say all, most - people have. Things like being happy, angry, sad, stuff like that. Feelings that people have that, according to logic and reasoning, shouldn't exist because most of the time, emotions simply get in the way of logic and reasoning. Emotions cause you to perform things worse if you let them go out of control and let them take over your train of thought...or they can help you do things better by strengthening your resolve. Love is one of those emotions...one of the strongest, actually, if not the strongest emotion that humans know."

"You should explain what it is, then," Murakumo snaps. "That doesn't tell us anything."

"Love?" Damon twists his lips. "I'm not qualified to tell anyone what love is. I've lived my life almost exclusively selfishly. I have no right to tell anyone, not even my own ship girls, what love is or isn't. So with that disclaimer said and done, personally...I think the basic definition of love is the desire to be with a particular someone or a group of people. If you love someone, you'd want to be with them. You would never mind spending any amount of time with them. Depending on how _much_ you love someone or some people, you might not ever want to spend a single day or hour or minute without them."

The sun can be seen starting its downwards journey across the bright and hazy sky as the truck rolls along the broken highway.

"But, if I might add," Damon continues, "in Chad's case, as much as he was a good guy, I personally think that his love for Kassia wasn't necessarily true love. I think that part of his feelings were most definitely obsession - the obsession of wanting to be with the one he believed that he loved to the point where he felt as though he couldn't live without her and made up his mind from the very beginning to off himself once he found out she was dead. So I'll take the liberty of adding a corollary to my own definition of love: if you truly love someone, you need to be prepared to let them go when the time comes."

Both Murakumo and Amatsukaze are silent.

"For you girls, it'll probably be really difficult to understand. You're computers in human bodies. You're innately programmed to understand the world around you in a logical and reasonable fashion. But you also need to come to understand what human emotions are - including your own. You have them too, as far as I can tell. There might come a day when you might directly disobey my order because of your own emotions. And while that might not be in my own interest, it will at least prove that you are, in my eyes, most definitely human beings - not just simply some ships that I use as weapons."

Damon gazes off into the horizon. He knew that the trip would be a quite the experience for him if he was so lucky to come out of it alive at the end, but he had least expected to be teaching others of his beliefs...especially because of the fact that Damon Polchow, like Murakumo and Amatsukaze, is not exactly a true human being.


End file.
